?ohison,  E.  H.  1841-1906 
The  religious  use  ot 
imagination 


m 


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THE  RELIGIOUS  USE  OF 
IMAGINATION 


E.  H.  JOHNSON 
Professor  in  Crozer  Theological  Seminary 


NEW    EDITION 


Philadelphia 

American  Baptist  Publication  Society 

Boston  Chicago  Atlanta 

New  York        St.  Louis  Dallas 


Copyright,  1901, 
By   silver,   BURDETT  &   COMPANY 


TO 
/IR>^  /IRotber  , 

WHO  LIVED  THE  TRUTH  HERE  TAUGHT 


PREFACE 


The  author  hopes  that  this  will  not  be 
thought  an  audacious  little  book.  It  under- 
takes merely  to  tell  of  something  which  is 
going  on  in  ordinary  minds  without  drawing 
attention,  and  which  had  better  be  told,  in 
order  that  its  importance  may  be  weighed. 

Certain  convictions  about  God  and  his  ways 
with  men  are  strangely  persistent.  Reason 
has  never  made  haste  to  welcome  these  con- 
victions, although  it  has  often  tried  to  adjust 
itself  to  them,  and  even  to  justify  them.  They 
persist  because  they  have  laid  hold  on  the 
Christian  imagination.  The  less  welcome  to 
reason  their  persistence,  the  more  evidently  it 
is  due  to  imagination.  Indeed,  precisely  the 
doctrines  that  stagger  imagination  commend 
themselves  to  it  in  some  aspect,  possibly  by 
their  very  boldness.      Certain  notions,  too,  about 


VI  PREFACE 

Christian  living  have  found  similar  acceptance, 
and  in  that  degree  are  regulative  of  the  highest 
aspirations. 

It  does  not  follow  that  the  Christian  imagina- 
tion readily  yields  to  delusions.  It  would  even 
seem  likely  that  there  is  '*  something  in  "  those 
ideas  about  God  and  duty  that  are  durably  fas- 
cinating to  good  and  not  unenlightened  people. 
At  least,  the  attempt  will  be  made  directly  to 
show  what  claim  imagination  may  put  forward 
as  a  guide  to  truth  and  duty  ;  and  then  we  will 
witness  with  what  boldness  she  attacks  the 
problems  of  religious  faith  and  life.  If  that 
preliminary  work  takes  us  for  a  few  minutes 
underground  where  the  light  is  dim,  it  will 
hardly  be  for  more  than  the  first  section ;  and 
without  the  foundation  thus  laid  the  rest  of  the 
book  would  be  in  the  air.  Even  down  there  I 
trust  we  may  catch  the  pleasant  smell  of  newly 
turned  earth,  and  not  the  musty  odors  of  an 
unaired  and  neglected  basement. 
Crozer  Theological  Seminary. 


CONTENTS 


PART    FIRST 

SERVICE  OF  IMAGINATION  TO  RELIGIOUS  TRUTH 

I. 

COMPETENCY  OF  IMAGINATION 

1.  A  Concession  and  a  Claim 3 

2.  How  Imagination  Plays  the  Critic    ....        9 

3.  How  Imagination  Makes  Discoveries      ...       23 

II. 

SCOPE   OF  IMA  GIN  A  TION  'S  SER  VICE 

1.  Varieties   in    the    Imaginers   and   the   Imag- 

ined    32 

2.  Imagination  in  the  Grand  Callings  ....  35 

3.  The  Case  for  Faith 42 

4.  First  Point  for  Faith  —  Thoughts  We  Must 

Think 48 

5.  Second  Point  for  Faith  —  High  Knowing  by 

Deep  Feeling 53 

6.  Third    Point    for    Faith  —  Veracity  of   Uni- 

fied Ideals 58 

7.  Fourth    Point    for    Faith  —  Imagination  c\n 

Handle  the  Case 62 

8.  How  the  Queen's  Gun  Lied 6^ 

vii 


VIU  CONTENTS 

III. 

PROBLEMS  AS    TO    THE    CREATOR 

1.  Imagine  Change 72 

2.  Imagine  Order 78 

3.  Imagine  Fitness 83 

4.  Imagine  Man 91 

5.  Imagine  God 95 

IV. 

PROBLEMS  AS    TO    THE   RULER 

1.  Imagination  Makes   Light  of  an    Old    Prob- 

lem       lOI 

2.  Imagination    Lights   on    a    Distinction    in   a 

Newer  Problem 108 

3.  Faith  is  not  Hope 112 

4.  Imagination's  Way  with  Miracles  and  Magic.     116 

V. 

PROBLEMS  AS    TO    THE   FA  THER 

1.  Will  He  Let  His  Children  Perish?  ....     124 

2.  Will  He  Speak? 133 

3.  Will  He  Come? 140 


PART    SECOND 

SERVICE   OF   IMAGINATION   TO   LIFE 

I. 

EXPOSITORY 

1.  Walking  by  Imagination 149 

2.  A  Definition  Defined 151 


CONTENTS  IX 
11. 

IMAGINATION  SEES  IDEALS 

1.  Christ  Offers  Ideals  to  Imagination     .     .     .  156 

2.  Imagining  it  Possible  to  bk  Strong    ....  160 

3.  Imagining  it  Beautiful  to  be  Good    ....  163 

4.  Imagining  what  Honor  is 166 

III. 

IMAGINATION  BREEDS   ENERGY 

1.  The  Passive  and  Active  in  Christianity    .     .  181 

2.  Christ  Seems  Real 187 

3    The  Long  Look  Ahead 190 

IV. 

IMA  GIN  A  TION  E  NL  IS  TS   PE  RSEVERANCE 

1.  We  also  Can 200 

2.  And  Must 206 

3.  And  Would  Like  to 211 

CONCL  US  IONS 

1.  Imagination  and  the  Unity  of  the  Faith     .  217 

2.  Imagination  and  the  Average  Christian  .     .  220 

INDEX 225 


PART   FIRST 

SERVICE   OF    IMAGINATION    TO 
RELIGIOUS    TRUTH 

Ilto-Tet   voovfiev. 

Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 


THE    RELIGIOUS   USE    OF 
IMAGINATION 


I 

COMPETENCY  OF  IMAGINATION 
I.    A  Concession  and  a  Claim 

It  is  agreed  that  the  poet  is  a  seer.  When 
imagination  accepts  the  shackles  of  metre  and 
rhyme,  it  passes  for  Sir  Oracle ;  but  if  it  makes 
free- to  go  in  prose,  what  people  think  is  plainly 
enough  intimated  by  the  phrase  "purely  im- 
aginary." Nevertheless  the  imagination  is  a^ 
potent,  trusty  and  widely  available  organ  for 
discovery   of   truth. 

And  it  is  a  discoverer  by  being  first  a  critic. 
This  claim,  although  it  may  seem  overbold,  is 
also  hinted  at  in  familiar  speech  by  the  word 
"unimaginable."     That  is,  the  last  and  irrevers- 


4  SERyiCB   TO    TRUTH 

ible  verdict  against  any  alleged  state  of  facts 
is  felt  to  be  that  such  a  state  of  facts  cannot 
even  be  imagined. 

In  calling  imagination  a  faculty  of  criticism 
it  is  not  implied  that  the  imagination  actually 
I  passes  judgment  upon  anything.  This  is  the 
\  office  of  reason  with  its  strange  power  of  be- 
\  holding  fundamental  truth  face  to  face,  or  of 
the  understanding  with  its  ability  to  compare, 
to  recognize  identity  and  difference,  and  to 
draw  inferences.  But  it  is  meant  that  imagina- 
tion is  often  able  to  prepare  and  present  so 
accurately  and  so  vividly  the  matter  on  which 
judgment  is  needed  that  a  verdict  is  given  at 
once  and  finally.  Such  an  achievement  makes 
imagination  seem  like  an  immediate  vision  of 
truth,  and  justifies  the  figure  of  speech  which 
directly  ascribes  to  her  the  judgment  that  she 
alone  makes  possible  so  promptly,  or  even 
makes  possible  at  all.  It  was  in  this  sense 
that  Professor  Tyndall,  in  accounting  for  the 
colors  seen  in  those  remote  fields  of  air  which 
science  may  never  explore,  said,  "  The  scientific 


COMPETENCY  OF  IMAGINATION  5 

"  imagination  ...  is  here  authoritative."  ^  Such 
a  figure  will  spare  us  a  deal  of  tediously  de- 
tailed and  analytical  phraseology,  and  will  serve 
the  purpose  of  this  book  by  emphasizing  the 
continuous  and  invaluable  but  generally  over- 
looked service  of  imagination  to  religious  thought 
and  life. 

It  is  worth  remarking,  as  we  go  down  to  the 
foundations,  how  different  is  the  method  of  im- 
agination in  searching  out  and  living  the  truth 
from  its  method  in  public  teaching.  In  the 
former  it  fronts  the  reality,  in  the  latter  it  often 
approaches  it  sidewise.  Only  mental  confusion 
can  arise  from  any  theological  office  of  imagina- 
tion not  straightforward,  and  only  spiritual  per- 
version can  come  from  any  indirect  practical 
office  ;  but  its  rhetorical  charm  is  often  in  un- 
looked-for obhquity  of  method.  This  is  con- 
spicuously the  case  when  resort  is  had  to  figures 
of  speech,  such  as  metaphor  and  hyperbole.  In 
making  use  of  these  figures  one  never  says  what 
he  means,  nor  means  what  he  says.     He  utters 

1  "  Fragments  of  Science,"  p.  431. 


J 


6  SERVICE    TO    TRUTH 

a  kind  of  riddle,  and  the  riddle  is  pleasing  if 
at  once  fit  and  strange.  Rhetorical  imagination 
seeks  to  illumine  the  truth  by  pretending  to 
disguise  it ;  but  in  determining  what  is  true, 
or  in  applying  truth  to  life,  imagination  strives 
to  penetrate  all  disguises  and  to  fix  a  steady 
eye  upon  reality.  Tyndall  claimed  this  "  Sci- 
entific Use  of  Imagination."  Is  an  instrument 
so  powerful  in  physical  investigation  as  he 
showed  it  to  be,  utterly  useless  in  the  inquiry 
for  religious  truth,  and  in  staking  out  the  path 
for  a  devout  life  "^  We  must  note  in  passing 
what  amounts  to  a  notable  denial  of  imagina- 
tion's real  competence,  while  claiming  for  it, 
with  some  enthusiasm,  an  inferior  competence. 
Years  ago  the  brilliant  Horace  Bushnell,  and 
more  recently  the  heart-compelling  Henry  Drum- 
mond,^  taught  that  imagination  is  the  sole  arbi- 
ter of  faith,  because  religious  truth  can  be  set 
forth  only  in  figures  of  speech.  ''  Christ,"  ex- 
claims   Bushnell,    is    ''God's    last    metaphor!" 

1  Bushnell's  "  God  in  Christ  ",  I ;  "  Building  Eras  ",  VIII  ; 
und  Drummond's  "  New  Evangelism",  pp.  38-55. 


COMPETENCY  OF  IMAGINATION  / 

Imagination  he  defines  as  "the  power  that 
distinguishes  truths  in  their  images,  and  seizes 
hold  of  images  for  the  expression  of  truths." 
His  main  ground  for  denying  that  rehgious  and, 
as  he  says,  philosophical  truths  can  have  an 
exact  expression  is  that  names  of  physical 
things,  used  figuratively,  are  the  only  names 
for  mental  and  spiritual  things.  "  Hence,"  says 
he,  "if  any  one  asks.  Is  there  any  hope  for 
theologic  science  left  ?  None  at  all,  I  answer 
most  unequivocally." 

But  it  may  be  contended  as  unequivocally 
that,  while  figurative  terms  are  the  only  terms 
for  mental  and  spiritual  realities,  those  terms 
may  have  distinguishable  meanings  ;  that,  while 
certain  of  these  realities  are  too  vast  or  too 
vague  to  be  known  distinctly  and  described 
accurately,  a  large  proportion  of  them  can  be 
known  well  enough  to  justify  saying  something 
about  them  ;  that  what  can  be  said  can  be  said 
in  the  order  of  the  relations  between  the  ob- 
jects, —  and,  lo !  a  science  of  those  objects. 
Thus  what  we  know  about  moral  and  religious 


8  SERVICE   TO    TRUTH 

truth  can  be  reduced  to  "prepositional  state- 
ments ",  and  in  this  definite  form  may  be  laid 
hold  of  by  imagination  ;  then  imagination  tests 
it,  and  so  fixes  it  in  the  faith  of  the  Christian 
ages. 

It  is  possible,  for  instance,  to  say  with 
"  prepositional "  definiteness,  that  God  is  a  per- 
sonal spirit,  infinite  in  all  excellencies ;  that 
man  has  an  imperishable  soul,  is  naturally  prone 
to  sin,  and  has  before  him  a  destiny  determined 
by  what  he  is ;  that  Christ  had  no  human 
father,  and  that  by  virtue  of  what  he  was  and 
is,  what  he  bore  and  did  and  does,  he  has  made 
every  provision  required  by  the  holy  nature  of 
God  or  the  fallen  estate  of  man  to  deliver  men 
from  the  power  and  the  penalties  of  sin.  What- 
ever variety  of  meanings  each  term  is  capable 
of,  one  of  the  meanings  can  be  fixed  upon,  and 
it  then  becomes  possible  to  affirm  or  to  deny 
the  truth  of  these  propositions.  The  list  of 
them  need  not  be  extended.  These  sufficiently 
indicate  how  different  what  Dr.  Bushnell  and 
Professor    Drummond    undertook    to    show   is 


COMPETENCY  OF  IMAGINATION  g 

from  what  I  now  essay.  In  a  word,  whatever 
the  risks  of  partial  knowledge,  it  is  so  far  knowl- 
edge. We  need  not  conclude  that  we  do  not 
know  anything  about  a  subject  unless  we  know 
everything  about  it ;  that  imagination  cannot 
adequately  picture  a  part  unless  she  can  picture 
the  whole. 

2.   How  Imagination  Plays  the  Critic 

Here  is  the  sub-cellar ;  but  there  is  light 
enough  for  us  to  see  the  bed-rock  and  the  great 
foundation  stones.  That  is,  how  imagination 
is  qualified  to  play  the  critic  is  not  so  very 
difficult  to  understand.  Imagination  is  image- 
ination,  the  mind's  power  of  picturing  to  itself 
things  or  even  abstractions  ;  of  seeing  the  in- 
visible; or,  according  to  an  intelligible  if  hardly 
elegant  phrase,  imagination  is  "a  realizing 
sense  "  of  objects  not  before  the  senses.  This 
last  phrase  intimates  two  elements  in  the  func- 
tion of  imagining :  mental  seeing,  and  vividness 
of  mental  seeing. 

The  ability  of  the  mind  to  judge  and  discover 


lO  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

by  imagining  is  found,  to  begin  with,  in  the 
^  mind's  ability  to  see.  This  is  not  put  forward 
as  a  new  notion  of  what  imagination  is  ;  it  is 
but  calHng  attention  to  what  in  all  cases,  and 
as  generally  understood,  it  essentially  is.  In 
regard  to  sensible  objects,  imagination  produces 
in  their  absence,  as  nearly  as  it  can,  the  mental 
apprehension  of  them  which  their  presence 
would  afford  through  the  senses.  Without 
physical  sensation  of  light  the  mind  achieves 
a  mental  perception  of  light.  In  the  same  fig- 
urative way  imagination  might  be  called  the 
mind's  hearing,  smelling,  tasting.  If  it  deals 
I  with  objects  not  of  sense,  imagination  attempts 
a  depiction  of  them  to  oneself  as  though  thee© 
objects  were  appreciable  by  sensation.  In  so 
doing  it  may  either  set  up  a  symbol  of  them, 
often  —  as  Dr.  Bushnell  claims  that  imagination 
always  must  —  constructing  a  metaphor  for 
them;  or  it  may  by  sheer  force  press  into  the 
mind  an  assurance  of  truth  in  these  abstractions. 
Imagination  platonizes.  To  imagination  univer- 
sal  truths  are  basilar  realities.     This  latter  is 


COMPETENCY  OF  IMAGINATION  I  I 

its  way  when  it  gives  largest  aid  to  those  rea- 
sonings about  abstract  truth  which  are  the  high 
function  of  rationality,  and  which  imagination 
thus  rescues  from  being  mere  processes  of  for- 
mal logic,  a  juggle  with  algebraic  formulas. 
It  is  a  remarkable  faculty,  imagination.  One 
can  hardly  think  of  another  faculty  more  indi- 
cative of  power  in  the  mind  than  that  the  mind  ^ 
can  see.  And  so  imagination  undertakes  its 
part  in  the  office  of  criticism  by  virtue  of  the 
fact  that  it  is  the  only  means  of  holding  before 
the  mind  the  objects  to  be  judged.  How  else 
can  the  critical  process  go  on  }  How  else  can  • 
it  so  much  as  begin  .-*  Neglecting  imagination  - 
the  mind  is  blindfolded.  It  moves  among  its 
treasures,  and  they  trip  it,  bewilder  it,  hurt  and 
disable  it. 

But  imagination  is  also  of  its  very  nature 
distinctness  of  mental  vision.  If  with  any  fit- 
ness it  can  be  called  "a  realizing  sense",  this 
is  because  imagination  sees  the  unseen  vividly 
enough  to  get  an  impression  of  its  reality.  If 
any  good  is  to  come  of  imagining,  it  must  be 


12  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

proportioned  to  the  liveliness  of  the  imagining. 
Nothing  dimly  seen  by  the  eye  is  well  enough 
seen,  and  nothing  feebly  imagined  is  safely 
imagined.  The  poet's  gift  is  preeminently  that 
of  liveliness  in  imagination.  If  we  looked  no 
further  into  his  gift,  it  would  at  least  be  evi- 
dent that  he  is  a  seer  because  his  mind  sees 
clearly. 

To  be  sure,  this  knack  of  almost  cajoling 
oneseK  into  believing  that  he  sees  what  he 
boldly  pictures  to  himself  gives  an  imaginative 
person  an  ill  name  for  veracity.  It  is  not  to 
be  denied  that,  while  we  may  prefer  to  dis- 
{  tinguish  sharply  between  fancy  and  imagina- 
tion, and  to  load  the  former  with  all  the  faults 
charged  upon  the  latter,  fancy  after  all  is  only 
imagination  at  sport.  But  even  common  speech 
allows  us  to  make  a  convenient  distinction  be- 
tween processes  not  psychologically  distinct. 
v;  Thus  "  fanciful  "  means  imaginative  in  no  good 
sense.  Only  when  the  unreal  or  untrue  is 
pictured  ought  the  picturing  to  be  stigmatized 
as  fanciful.     Without  doubt  the  mind  can  toy 


COMPETENCY  OF  IMAGINATION  I  3 

with  the  untrue  and  unreal.  It  can  please 
itself  with  whimsies.  But  that  it  is  able  to  do 
this  does  not  prove  that  it  is  able  to  do  nothing 
better.  That  one  can  play  and  likes  to  play 
does  not  settle  it  that  he  cannot  work  and 
would  not  like  to  work.  And  if  Jack  or  Harry, 
or  even  his  father,  does  on  occasion  disport 
himself  with  a  deal  of  energy,  it  by  no  means 
follows  that  his  energy  is  either  then  or  ever 
quite  thrown  away.  We  need,  however,  some 
way  to  tell  whether  we  are  catching  the  fel- 
low at  his  pranks  or  at  serious  toil.  Surely 
it  need  not  be  so  hard  to  find  out  which  he  is 
about.  But  we  require  tests  as  to  whether 
imagination  is  now  sporting  with  trifles  or 
delving  deep  into  truth.  We  are  obliged  to 
suspect  that  the  imaginings  of  a  child  are  mere 
fancies;  although  students  of  the  child-mind 
know  better  now  than  to  flog  its  fancies  as  lies. 
But  a  man's  imaginings  may  be  as  trusty  as  a 
child's  are  trivial.  And  there  are  tests  effi- 
cient enough  to  endorse  to  us  the  critical 
judgments  that  attend  upon  a  strong  imagina- 


14  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

tion,  as  also  its  capacity  to  help  on  the  progress 
of  knowledge. 

Imagination  is  mental  picturing,  and  lively 
picturing.  Now  when  the  mind  attempts  a 
lively  picture  of  the  unseen,  it  is  utterly 
baffled  if  the  notions  which  it  tries  to  put  to- 
gether will  not  stay  together.  The  livelier  the 
mental  picture,  the  more  obviously  incoherent 
may  be  the  combination  ;  and  to  reject  so  futile 
an  admixture  is  to  obey  reason.  In  fact, 
reason  is  best  able  to  judge  when  the  vivid- 
ness of  an  imagination  exposes  the  real  char- 
acter of  the  objects  imagined,  and  makes 
conspicuous  that  some  of  them  are  false  or, 
at  least,  that  the  attempt  to  combine  them  a 
mistake.  Cherubs'  heads  with  wings,  which 
the  old  Italians  painted  with  so  light  a  touch, 
are  lovely  symbols  of  swift  and  adoring  intelli- 
gence ;  and,  though  altogether  fanciful,  they 
do  not  affront  reason,  because,  like  other  con- 
ventional symbols,  they  avoid  pretense  of 
reality.  But  if  we  were  seriously  asked  to 
imagine  cherubs  as  heads  needing  to  be  moved, 


COMPETENCY  OF  IMAGINATION  1 5 

all  of  US  to-day  are  physiologists  enough  to  see 
that  wings  so  set  could  not  answer  the  purpose, 
and  to  see  this  as  soon  as  we  imagine  the 
winged  heads. 

The  ordinary  process  of  imagination  is  syn-  ■^' 
thetic.     In  the  fine  arts  and  poetry,  in  romance 
and    history,    in    science,    philosophy   and    the- 
ology the   business    of   imagination    is    to   put  v 
things    together.       It    finds    things    together. 
Nothing  in   nature  exists  apart.     If  it  did,   it 
would  be  waste  material,  like  ill-estimated  heaps 
of  sand,  lumps  of  hardened  mortar,    and  frag- 
ments of  brick   defacing   the    street    before   a 
new  house.      Souls  of  men  conscious  of   self- 
hood are  the   only  discrete   entities,   and  then 
only  as  to  the  solitariness  and    originality    in- 
separable  from    will    as   will.     A    human   soul  K,    .    ,^ 
would    be   inhuman    if    it    attempted    to   exist/ 
alone.       And    so  imagination    seldom    has  any 
proper  business  except   putting  together  things 
which    fit.     So    entirely  normal,  so   essentially 
valid  is  this  process  that,  when   ideal  combina- 
tions remain  in  free  union,  the  imagined  picture 


1 6  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

is  universally  accepted  as  essentially  true.  The 
literary  critic  does  not  find  the  well-worn  word 
"  verisimilitude  "  express  his  conception  of  the 
authority  which  belongs  to  well -imagined  com- 
positions. He  is  not  content  to  say  that  the 
imagined  hero  or  incident  is  like  the  truth  or 
unhke  it  ;  he  says  the  story  is  **  convincing  "  or 
"not  convincing,"  as  though  it  were  a  lawyer's 
brief.  The  best  fiction  is  truer  than  any  hap- 
pening ;  the  romancer  is  a  realist,  the  poet  is  a 
seer.  It  is  because  each  is  first  a  critic,  al- 
though the  critical  process  may  be  spontaneous, 
and  its  verdict  felt  rather  than  thought. 

Now,  imagination  may  attempt  to  picture  an 
analysis,  even  a  scientific  analysis  ;  but  how  ? 
Again,  by  synthesis.  If  it  images  an  hitherto 
unknown  argon  or  krypton  in  our  atmosphere, 
the  gas  it  guesses  at  can  be  correctly  guessed 
only  because  there  are  signs  that  a  thus  far 
undetected  '*  element  "  is  entangled  with  known 
elements.  But  now  the  chemist's  imagination 
catches  a  glimpse  of  its  skirt  as  the  wind  whirls 
past,  and  no  other  eye  except  his  trained  eye  is 


COMPETENCY  OF  IMAGlhlATlON  1/ 

quick  enough  for  that  glimpse.  He  imagines 
a  new  element  ;  how  will  he  isolate  it  and 
make  sure  of  it  ?  Not  by  tearing  it  out,  as  a 
boy  tears  out  the  wing  of  a  fly  or  the  honey-bag 
of  a  bumble  bee.  He  must  either  first  coax 
the  unknown  element  to  combine  with  some 
other,  and  then  coax  its  new  company  away, 
or  else  get  the  company  in  which  he  finds  it 
to  yield  to  a  stronger  affinity.  And  he  will  try 
to  imagine  the  necessary  combinations  before 
he  attempts  them.  He  would  be  no  better 
than  an  old  style  alchemist  if  he  worked  at 
haphazard  without  foreseeing,  as  in  these  days 
he  partly  may,  what  will  come  of  his  experi- 
ment. But  when  he  has  entirely  determined 
the  existence  of  his  new  element,  and  got  it  by 
itself,  and  can  talk  of  its  atomic  weight  with  a 
confidence  one  might  say  beyond  all  imagina- 
tion, what  after  all  does  he  know  about  his 
argon  or  his  krypton  until  he  can  see  what 
its  old  companions  are  without  it,  or  what  will 
come  of  putting  it  into  strange  company  'i  All 
that   we  know  about  chemical  elements  isolated 


1 8  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

is  but  the  threshold  of  knowledge.  We  know 
their  nature  when  we  know  what  they  do  in 
combination. 

If  the  physical  philosopher  in  thought  pur- 
sues his  analysis  far  beyond  the  point  where 
all  scientific  tests  come  to  a  full  stop,  if  he 
makes  bold  to  imagine  all  elements  analyzed 
back  into  one,  that  one  resolved  into  motion,  and 
motion  reduced  to  an  action  of  God,  venture- 
some and  stupendous  as  the  imagined  analysis 
appears,  it  is  idle  and  presumptuous  unless 
imagination  begins  where  just  now  it  left  off, 
with  the  last  result  of  its  analysis,  and  shows 
how  from  it  as  "  primordial  ^gg  "the  universe 
might  be  hatched.  A  question  is  for  the  sake 
of  the  answer  ;  analysis  is  for  the  sake  of  syn- 
thesis. 

Combination  then  is  the  major  part  of  im- 
aginations, and  congruity  in  the  combination 
will  hardly  be  taken  for  a  covert  lie.  The 
poet  at  least  is  admitted  to  be  a  seer  ;  and  that 
which  the  poet  or  the  philosopher,  with  his  ex- 
traordinary   power    of   combination  and   clarity 


COMPETENCY  OF  IMAGINATION  1 9 

of  vision,  can  show  to  be  a  coherent  imagining, 
this  imperiously  and  successfully  demands  recog- 
nition as  truth.i 

1  Mr.  Ruskin,  who  felt  the  strongest  repugnance  to  me- 
chanical combinations  of  ideas  and  altogether  denied  to  them 
the  name  of  imaginations,  who  accounted  "  imagination  pene- 
trative "  the  highest  order  of  imagination,  and  insisted  with  a 
rush  and  a  glow  unusual  even  in  him  that  "the  virtue  of 
imagination  is  its  reaching,  by  intuition  and  intensity  of  gaze 
(not  by  reasoning,  but  by  its  authoritative  opening  and  re- 
vealing power)  a  more  essential  truth  than  is  seen  at  the 
surface  of  things,"  although  he  made  a  complete  mystery  of 
the  process  by  which  the  truth  is  thus  reached,  nevertheless 
in  the  same  connection  recognized  that  the  truth  when  once 
reached  is  attested  in  the  very  way  alleged  in  these  pages. 
He  says,  "  If  it  be  fancy  or  any  other  form  of  pseudo-imagi- 
nation which  is  at  work,  then  that  which  it  gets  hold  of  may 
not  be  a  truth,  but  only  an  idea  which  will  keep  giving  way 
as  soon  as  we  try  to  take  hold  of  it  and  turning  into  some- 
thing else,  so  that  as  we  go  on  copying  it,  every  part  will  be 
inconsistent  with  all  that  has  gone  before,  and  at  intervals  it 
will  vanish  altogether."  ("  Modern  Painters,"  Part  III,  Se- 
ll, Ch.  Ill,  §§  28  [foot  note],  29).  Intuitive  and  inexplic- 
able as  Ruskin  takes  the  process  of  penetrative  imagination 
to  be,  he  perceives  that  its  results  can  be  tested  by  their 
coherence,  or  their  want  of  it. 

I  can  hardly  forbear  adding  that,  difficult  or  even  impos- 
sible as  it  might  be  to  trace  the  swift  processes  of  imagina- 
tion in  the  case  of  surpassing  genius,  when  Ruskin  goes  so 
far  as  to  affirm  that  imagination  knows  truth  without  using 
reason,  he  as  much  as  says  that  genius  may  know  the  inner 
life  of  objects  without  seeing  that  the  objects  themselves  are 


/ 


20  SERVICE    TO    TRUTH 

Besides  his  gifts  of  mental  vision,  of  clear 
sightedness,  of  tact  in  synthetizing,  the  poet 
may  put  forward  another  claim  in  behalf  of 
the  critical  acumen  of  imagination.  Among  all 
the  materials  which  his  imagination  works 
over,  some  at  least  are  of  the  best  quality. 
Certain  of  his  ideas  are  undisputed  truths. 
With  his  clear  insight  and  his  alert  recognition 
of  relations,  his  true  ideas  serve  him  as  guides. 
They  take  new  ideas  into  their  fellowship,  and 
warrant  these  to  be  as  trusty  as  themselves. 
One  truth  is  a  criterion  of  all  related  truth. 
The  poet's  imagination  brings  up  to  it  other 
ideas  to  be  tested  by  it,  and  advances  with 
joy  from  that  to  these,  or  retreats  from  them 
with   the   decisive    repugnance    which   a   false 


the  proper  fruit  of  that  life.  Ordinary  minds  trace  effects 
/  to  their  causes  by  noticing  some  correspondence  between 
the  cause  and  the  effect.  If  imagination  can  exercise  the 
penetrating  judgment  which  Ruskin  ascribes  to  it,  more  will 
need  to  be  said  for  that  ability  than  an  eloquent  assertion  of 
it.  It  will  have  to  be  pointed  out  wherein  imagination's 
qualification  to  judge  resides  ;  and  unless  it  can  be  pointed 
out,  this  great  powder  of  the  human  mind  will  remain  too  in- 
scrutable to  be  entirely  believed  in  and  deferred  to. 


COMPETENCY  OF  IMAGINATION  21 

note    or    disgusting    spectacle    produces    in    a 
sensitive  mind. 

In  closing  this  curt  exposition  of  the  imagi- 
nation's fitness  to  play  the  critic  and  pass  judg- 
ment, it  may  be  noted  that  all  ideas,  true  or 
false,  are  so  capable  of  unfolding  their  con- 
tents and  of  forming  at  least  temporary  com- 
binations after  their  own  sort,  that  a  test 
generally  accepted  as  final  is  found  in  the  issue 
of  such  a  development.  A  tree  is  known  by 
its  fruit.  The  surest  criterion  of  truth  or 
falsity  in  a  doctrine  is  to  unfold  completely 
what  it  enfolds,  to  build  a  system  on  it.  This 
is  the  congenial  office  of  reflective  imagination. 
One  of  the  strongest  tendencies  of  the  human 
mind  drives  it  to  undertake  this  office.  No 
derision  of  system-making  in  religious  doctrine 
long  arrests  or  diverts  this  tendency.  When 
it  is  checked  in  one  direction  it  pushes  out  in 
another.  The  very  persons  who  dislike  the  out- 
come of  one  scheme  of  ideas,  spontaneously  or 
even  unconsciously  set  about  a  scheme  of  their 
own.     And  so  their  ideas  come  under  the  test 


22  SERVICE   TO    TRUTH 

which  they  hate  ;  —  have  judgment  passed  upon 
them  as  a  whole.  This  tendency  to  developing 
and  systematizing  ideas  would  not  be  so  irre- 
sistible if  the  process  were  chiefly  one  of  formal 
logic.  Let  those  who  have  worked  out  sets 
of  notions  on  a  subject  which  deeply  interested 
them  say  whether  they  went  about  mak- 
ing up  a  broad  and  complete  view  by  studied 
deduction  and  formal  inference.  Systems  once 
made  may  seek  a  defense  of  this  sort,  as 
military  defense  plants  its  posts  in  calculated 
lines  on  or  near  the  established  highways ; 
but  the  highways  are  rarely  laid  out  by  so 
mathematical  surveying.  They  get  themselves 
formed  along  "the  lines  of  least  resistance." 
And  so  schemes  of  thought  on  what  subjects 
you  please  almost  seem  to  make  themselves. 
Imagination  runs  to  and  fro  until  the  highways 
are  beaten  smooth  by  use.  Whole  generations, 
successive  ages  may  be  busied  in  forming  them, 
but  when  they  have  been  formed  nobody  can 
dispute  whither  run  these  well-worn  roads.  A 
scheme  of  ideas  is  like  such  a  network  of  roads 


COMPETENCY  OF  IMAGINATION  23 

traversing  a  country.  By  their  aid  one  can 
readily  go  from  part  to  part,  and  know  all  that 
is  to  be  found  out  about  the  lay  of  the  land 
and  what  grows  on  it.  Good  or  bad  as  it  may 
be,  wholly  or  in  part,  no  one  who  lives  or  visits 
thereabout  need  remain  in  doubt  of  the  region 
which  these  naturally  formed  paths  traverse  and 
open  up. 

3.    How  Imagination  Makes  Discoveries 

If,  now,  it  is  recognized  that  imagination  at 
all  provides  for  a  judgment  upon  the  truth  or 
falsity  of  its  own  vaticinations,  if  it  so  pro- 
vides by  its  vision  of  the  invisible,  by  the  dis- 
tinctness of  its  vision,  by  its  knack  at  combining 
materials,  at  testing  them  by  their  coherence, 
by  their  accord  with  known  truth,  and  their 
outcome  as  unfolded  systems,  it  needs  little 
more  than  to  be  mentioned  that  these  very 
means  of  testing  the  truth  of  ideas  are  each 
and  all  means  of  advancing  to  new  truth.  Such 
advance  is  effected  either  by  the  spontaneous 
self-suggestion    of    ideas    germane  to  those  al- 


24  SERVICE    TO   TRUTH 

ready  seen  by  the  mind  in  full  light,  or  by 
the  more  painstaking  method  of  exclusion.  In 
either  case  the  office  of  imagination  is  con- 
spicuous. How  indispensable  that  office  is, 
apart  from  all  thus  far  implied  in  the  process 
of  criticism,  one  may  be  pardoned  for  regarding 
as  undeniable  when  these  three  additional  points 
are  considered;  to  wit,  i.  a  large  part  of  the 
material  to  be  dealt  with  is  outside  of  sense, 
and  as  such  wholly  imaginary ;  2.  the  material 
which  may  be  known  through  the  senses  can 
be  assembled  before  the  mind  at  one  time  only 
by  an  act  of  imagination ;  3.  the  end  sought, 
the   law  to    be   discovered,  the  ultimate   truth 

\  which  includes  all  truths  already  known,  is 
but  an  imagined  end,  law,  truth.  This  does 
not  mean  that  the  entire  task  falls  to  imagina- 
tion,  but   it   means   that   no   long   step  can  be 

}  taken  in  the  progress  of  knowledge  unless  im- 
agination lend  the  help  of  her  strong  hand. 
Let  us  see. 

(i)   The  material  to  be  looked  into  is  in  large 
part  beyond  the  reach  of  sense.     Familiar  illus- 


COMPETENCY  OF  IMAGINATION  25 

trations  are  atoms  and  the  ether.  But  although 
no  approach  to  seeing  or  otherwise  ''sensing" 
an  atom  is  possible,  what  prodigious  strides 
modern  chemistry  has  taken  by  aid  of  these 
imagined  ultimates  of  matter  !  And  while  phys- 
ical philosophers  sometimes  amuse  themselves 
by  indicating  the  difficulties  involved  in  the 
conception  of  a  perfectly  fluid  and  elastic 
medium  filUng  space,  physical  science  itself 
has  been  all  afloat  in  that  thin  medium  and 
safely  borne  afar  by  an  imaginary  reality.  Nor 
has  any  one  been  able  to  suggest  a  substitute 
for  the  ether  which  would  serve  science  as  well, 
and  be  tangible  too.  How  one  must  wonder  to 
find  the  most  aggressively  realistic  of  all  modern 
knowledge,  to  wit,  physical  science,  resting  on  a 
transcendental  substance,  if  one  may  so  call  it, 
the  luminiferous  ether,  and  built  out  of  imagi- 
nary materials,  the  indivisible  atoms  !  Imagina- 
tion could  hardly  set  up  a  bolder  claim  to 
trustiness  than  this. 

As  the  realities  fundamental  to  physical  sci- 
ence are  purely  imaginary,  it  should  surprise  no 


26  SERVICE    TO    TRUTH 

one  that  such  are  also  the  objects  of  mathe- 
matical reasoning.  Nothing  else  is  so  subtly 
abstract,  so  ineffably  imaginary  as  those  ideal 
quantities  and  relations  which  are  the  objects 
of  mathematical  exploration.  In  large  part 
they  are  capable  of  expression  only  by  sym- 
bols. Yet  the  mind  is  so  constituted  that,  if 
it  deals  with  these  imaginings  at  all,  it  can 
accept  no  other  findings  than  those  of  this 
mystic  science.  At  the  same  time  these  find- 
ings enclose  the  largest  knowledge  of  nature. 
Mathematical  reasoning  is  a  strenuous  and  irre- 
sistible incantation  to  which  the  heights  and  the 
depths  give  up  their  secrets.  What  the  laws 
of  mind  require  us  to  imagine  concerning  the 
world  about  us  is  invariably  matter  of  fact. 
Things  answer  to  thoughts,  the  laws  of  matter 
to  the  laws  of  mind.  And  so,  in  the  orderly 
dreaming  of  trained  imagination,  knowledge 
moves  on,  often  with  quick,  long  strides  that 
defy  frolicsome  and  light-footed  fancy  herself 
to  follow. 

(2)  If  a  great  part  of  the  material  with  which 


COMPETENCY  OF  IMAGINATION  2/ 

progressing  study  has  to  deal  is  from  its  very 
nature,  as  we  have  just  seen,  wholly  beyond 
the  senses,  another  great  part  is  within  the 
range  of  sense ;  but  is  never  at  one  time  in 
range  on  a  scale  sufficiently  large.  The  induc- 
tions of  science  commonly  rest  on  former  ob- 
servations, not  on  observations  at  the  moment. 
The  story  of  human  history  is  also  a  story  of 
persons,  of  ages,  long  vanished.  If  truth  about 
anything  not  before  the  sense  is  to  be  learned 
at  all,  it  is  imagination  that  musters  and  arrays 
the  facts.  Thus  the  second  as  well  as  the  first 
condition  of  progress  in  knowledge  is  supplied 
by  this  faculty. 

(3)  The  third  point  is  that  the  issue  sought 
by  study  is  an  unseen  reality,  unseen  both  be- 
fore and  after  it  is  reached.  What  more  tenu- 
ous abstraction  than  a  law  of  nature  }  As  just 
noticed,  it  can  be  stated  often  in  a  mathematical 
formula.  The  abstract  laws  of  concrete  things 
are  the  furthest  reach  of  human  science.  And 
they  are  science.  We  know  by  their  means 
the  safety  of   a  suspension  bridge  and  of  the 


28  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

planet  we  live  on.  The  mind's  realizing  sense 
is  capable  of  forming  and  of  lending  aid  in  the 
justification  of  these  final  convictions.  Thus 
much  can  be  said  of  truth  already  in  posses- 
sion :  if  universal,  it  is  a  generalization  v^^ith 
which  only  the   mind's  eye  can  deal. 

So  long  as  it  remains  an  object  of  search  the 
truth  is  wholly  a  creature  of  imagination,  and 
must  first  be  imagined  if  it  is  to  be  found. 
The  investigator  arranges  his  materials  and 
asks  their  meaning  under  guidance  of  a  guessed 
answer  provisionally  adopted.  Hypothesis  or 
theory  always  falls  short  of  knowledge,  but  is 
serviceable  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge.  In- 
vestigation is  not  aimless  wandering  in  hope  of 
coming  out  where  one  would  be  glad  to  find 
himself ;  it  is  not  a  chance  tumbling  about  of 
children's  lettered  blocks,  counting  on  one's 
luck  to  spell  out  the  truth.  It  is  such  follow- 
ing of  clues  as  existing  information  and  saga- 
cious guessing  will  afford ;  it  is  the  slow  reading 
off  of  so  much  truth  as  facts  deftly  put  together 
can  be  made  to  spell.     But  in  all  skillfully  pur- 


COMPETENCY  OF  IMAGINATION  29 

sued  inquiry  conjecture  must  precede  certainty. 
In  thus  adding  to  the  common  stock  of  knowl- 
edge the  service  of  imagination  is  even  more 
obvious  than  its  ability  to  estimate  its  own 
operations.  It  is  bent  on  progress,  not  on  criti- 
cism ;  but  in  the  service  of  truth  that  which, 
in  a  sort  of  metonymy,  I  have  called  its  critical 
office  is  indispensable  as  a  quick  way  of  testing 
"guesses  at  truth." 

Now  this  account  of  the  competency  of 
imagination  to  serve  the  interests  of  knowl- 
edge has  entirely  failed  if  it  leaves  the  impres- 
sion that  imagination  defies  reason,  goes  beyond 
reason,  or  in  any  way  is  at  odds  with  reason. 
Facility  in  picture -making  provides  its  own 
safeguard  when  the  relations  of  imagination 
to  reason  are  normal  and  free.  Imagination's 
office  is  to  make  the  office  of  reason  easy. 
And  it  succeeds  so  well,  as  was  remarked  at 
the  beginning  of  this  section,  that  in  many 
cases  the  decision  is  not  due  to  deliberation, 
but  is  virtually  made  in  making  the  picture. 
So  that  imagination  figures  over  and  again  as 


30  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

both  artist  and  critic.  The  process  of  prepar- 
ing the  case  for  the  inspection  of  reason  is 
such  as  to  exhibit  the  reasonableness  of  the 
process.  To  recapitulate :  Imagination  is  men- 
tal vision,  vivid  and  comprehensive ;  it  puts 
together  materials  the  coherence  of  which  is 
to  be  determined,  a  coherence  which  is  of 
peculiar  significance  when  it  includes  the  ac- 
cord of  questionable  materials  with  unques- 
tioned truth ;  or  it  swiftly  unfolds  a  fruitful 
idea  into  a  scheme  of  ideas,  and  thus  definitively 
tests  the  veracity  of  the  initial  idea  by  its  out- 
come. So  far  its  competency  to  sit  in  judg- 
ment. Its  competence  to  aid  in  discovery  of 
new  truth  is  clearly  seen  when  we  reflect,  first, 
that  the  data  which  are  to  be  constructed  into 
new  truth  are  largely  objects  of  imagination, 
being  either  abstractions  or  concrete  facts 
rarely  all  present  to  the  senses  of  the  explorer ; 
and  secondly,  that  the  truth  itself,  if  a  general 
truth,  is  an  object  of  imagination  alone,  never 
capable  of  subjection  to  the  senses. 

Of  course,  too  wide  claims  must  be  avoided. 


COMPETENCY  OF  IMAGINATION  3 1 

The  faculty  which  pictures  may  picture  the 
false  as  well  as  the  true.  Furthermore,  not 
all  sorts  of  reality  are  equally  submissive  to 
the  plastic  hand  of  imagination.  It  is  neces- 
sary to  examine  in  another  section  the  scope  of 
its  availability  as  the  servant  of  truth. 


32  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 


II 

SCOPE   OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE 

I.    Varieties  in  the  Imaginers  and  the 
Imagined 

In  attempting  to  fix  the  limits  within  which 
imagination  can  help  us  to  make  sure  of  the 
truth  it  ought  to  be  mentioned  that  the  ser- 
viceableness  of  this  faculty  varies  greatly  with 
persons.  One  can  scarce  make  brilliant  use 
of  a  power  which  he  may  barely  be  said  not 
altogether  to  lack.  It  is  preposterous  to  offer 
poetry,  music  or  even  history  to  the  unimagi- 
native. If  a  game  like  chess  seems  dull,  or  a 
science  like  geometry  incomprehensible,  it  is 
very  likely  because  the  mind's  eye  is  unable  to 
see  the  combinations  which  need  to  be  made 
on  the  chess-board,  or  which  must  be  mentally 
traced  from  lines  already  drawn  and  lettered 
on  the  blackboard.     If  you  are  unable  to  follow 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE         33 

the  clearest  instructions  about  the  road  to  take 
from  one  village  to  another,  why  deny  that 
some  other  man  can  do  it  ?  The  unimaginative 
should  not  make  haste  to  discredit  the  doings 
of  competent  imaginations. 

As  men  differ  in  imagination,  so  ideas  differ 
in  imaginability.  Widespread  and  persistent 
beliefs  are  all  easily  imaginable  beliefs.  And 
the  easily  imaginable  are  the  exceptionally 
salient  ideas  which  dominate  the  fields  of 
thought  around  them,  and  are  ever  in  view. 
They  are  recognitions  of  essential  reality,  of 
reality  which  cannot  well  be  disguised  or  long 
overlooked.  This  is  precisely  the  reverse  of 
that  purblind  want  of  discrimination  and  that 
fatuity  which  are  widely  ascribed  to  imagina- 
tion. It  is  believed  even  to  put  a  false  face  on 
truth,  if  not  to  hide  it  entirely.  Snow  and  ice 
lie  deep  over  the  dome  of  Mont  Blanc  and  the 
peak  of  the  Jungfrau.  Human  eye  has  never 
seen  either  mountain  top,  but  only  its  gleaming 
veil.  Another  Swiss  mountain  flings  its  sides 
so   steep    into    the   air   that,    although    clouds 


34  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

enfold  it  and  snows  dash  against  it,  they  try 
in  vain  to  keep  it  hid.  Presently  the  wind 
changes,  storm  and  cloud  are  beaten  back,  and 
the  abrupt  mountain  is  seen  to  lift  its  stern 
black  pyramid  to  the  blue  heavens  as  of  old. 
It  is  with  truths  like  the  Matterhorn  that  ima- 
gination most  readily  deals,  truths  so  conspicu- 
ous that  their  reality  cannot  long  be  masked, 
nor  ever  afterward  forgotten.  Such  truths 
abound  in  every  region  of  thought.  They 
always  catch  the  eye  when  it  turns  toward 
where  they  stand.  Not,  of  course,  that  all 
traditional  beliefs  are  true,  but  that  of  all  true 
beliefs  those  only  which  tower  before  imagina- 
tion can  become  traditions. 

That  this  salience  in  ideas  which  abide  before 
the  mind's  eye  does  not  shut  up  imagination's 
service  within  narrow  limits  may  be  seen  if  we 
glance  at  its  office  in  those  departments  of 
mental  activity  which  are  subject  to  the  most 
rigorous  rules,  and  in  which  the  claims  of 
notions  are  tested  by  the  most  palpable  results. 
In  this  way  we  submit  the  office  of   imagination 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE         35 

to  the  scrutiny  of  the  senses.  What  eye  and 
ear  know  shall  now  determine  for  us  what  im- 
ae:ination  can  know. 


*&' 


2.    Imagination  in  the  Grand  Callings 

If  one  sort  of  human  genius  is  more  masterful 
than  any  other,  and  is  put  to  a  test  more  se- 
verely practical  than  any  other,  it  is  the  genius 
of  the  soldier.  In  a  swift  crisis  everything  is 
risked  for  which  human  lives  can  be  risked.  Of 
all  men  the  military  leader  needs  to  be  the  least 
subject  to  illusions,  but  he  must  be  the  most 
imaginative.  The  strategist's  work  is  almost 
disproportionately  one  of  imagination.  So  is  the 
tactician's.  The  strategist  who  cannot  in  ad- 
vance sweep  the  entire  field  of  operations  with 
the  mind's  eye,  who  cannot  imagine  the  group- 
ing and  movement  of  his  forces,  and  those 
of  his  enemies  too,  is  as  helpless  as  the  chess- 
player who  moves  his  pieces  about  without 
foreseeing  what  situation  will  be  caused  by  his 
move.  And  when  battle  is  joined  the  tactician 
who  allows  his  mind  to  be  occupied  with  what 


36  SERVICE   TO    TRUTH 

his  eyes  see  or  his  ears  hear,  is  defeated  in 
advance.  If  military  ambition  aspires  to  world- 
conquest,  the  soldier  so  ambitious  must  go 
where  Satan  took  our  Lord,  to  the  top  of 
a  high  mountain  from  which  he  can  view  all 
the  kingdoms  of  the  world.  Only  imagination 
can  work  such  a  miracle  for  him.  The  strain 
upon  this  power  in  conjunction  with  memory  is 
so  great  that  no  less  a  prodigy  of  planning  than 
Napoleon  is  said  to  have  aided  the  mental  pic- 
ture by  sticking  pins  with  variously  colored 
heads  into  a  topographical  map  at  the  points 
reached  by  different  bodies  of  his  own  and  the 
enemy's  troops. 

Not  less  imperious  demand  is  made  upon  the 
imagination  of  a  statesman.  Preposterous  as  it 
would  seem  to  require  of  him  foreknowledge,  he 
needs  to  foresee  what  men  will  do  under  any 
imaginable  circumstances  which  he  can  bring 
about.  The  sagacity  reverently  ascribed  by 
Americans  to  the  framers  of  their  national  con- 
stitution, is  the  sagacity  which  could  compass 
precisely   this    result.     Their  failures    are  fail- 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE  37 

ures  in  foresight,  their  successes  due  to  visions 
of  the  future.  The  papers  by  Hamilton,  Madi- 
son and  Jay,  known  as  The  Federalist,  which 
played  so  important  a  part  in  persuading  the 
states  of  the  old  Confederation  to  accept 
the  new  constitution,  were  able  to  overcome 
the  fancies  of  timidity  by  the  stronger  imagina- 
tions of  a  true  statesmanship.  The  more  vivid 
the  prevision,  the  more  crafty  are  the  devices  of 
a  demagogue,  and  the  more  trusty  the  plans  of 
a  patriot.  An  imaginative  politician  is  the  only 
practical  politician  in  small  things  as  in  great. 
His  combinations  must  be  framed  under  the 
guidance  of  insight  into  human  nature  and  cir- 
cumstances ;  but  they  are  all  framed  by  imagi- 
nation. 

The  historian,  too,  must  be  able  to  see  events 
long  past  or  he  cannot  make  his  readers  see ; 
he  cannot  even  know  what  to  try  to  make  them 
see.  His  imagination  must  penetrate  the  trans- 
actions in  the  human  breast ;  he  must  be  able 
to  declare  the  hidden  motives  which  the  makers 
of   history    never    avowed    even  to  themselves. 


38  SERyiCE   TO   TRUTH 

Unless  he  can  in  imagination  so  completely 
recreate  the  situation  as  to  see  all  this  too 
clearly  to  be  deluded,  he  may  be  an  annalist  or 
a  teller  of  fables,  but  he  is  not  a  historian.  He 
cannot  be  just,  he  cannot  tell  the  truth,  he  can- 
not know  the  truth,  unless  his  imagination  is 
powerful  enough  to  follow  the  course  of  events 
and  to  behold  the  unveiled  causes  of  events. 
This  is  why  historical  genius  of  the  first  order 
is  as  rare  as  poetical  genius  of  the  same  order. 
The  imagination  is  like  a  vast  pair  of  com- 
passes. One  foot  rests  firmly  on  the  present, 
while  the  other  sweeps  the  past ;  this  is  history. 
Then  the  clutch  is  tightened,  the  hand  steadied, 
and  the  compasses  fetch  a  circuit  through  the 
future ;  this  is  statesmanship.  Statecraft  and 
historical  insight  are  so  near  akin  that  no  one's 
views  of  the  past  are  so  interesting  as  those  of 
a  great  statesman,  and  no  one's  predictions  so 
impressive  as  those  of  a  real  historian. 

There  is  one  further  realm  of  imagination 
more  significant  than  any  other  to  the  modern 
man,   the    realm    of   natural    science.      Within 


SCOPE   OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE  39 

this  sphere  the  exactitude  of  positive  knowledge 
reigns,  and  conjecture  is  remorselessly  exposed. 
But  in  its  fields  misunderstanding  is  easy. 
Such  a  field  is  the  sky.  It  is  far  easier  to 
imagine  an  error  than  a  truth  with  regard  to 
the  daily  and  nightly  spectacle  of  the  heavens. 
The  body's  eye  deceives  the  mind's  eye  even 
while  provoking  its  activity,  and  the  students  of 
science  sometimes  go  wild  with  amusement 
over  popular  fancies.  Still  it  is  no  mean  physi- 
cist who  has  taught  us  the  indispensability  of 
scientific  imagination.  Professor  Tyndall's  fa- 
mous address  on  this  subject  ascribes  to  imagina- 
tion the  critical  exploration  of  the  unknown. 
Speaking  as  above  noted  concerning  the  color 
of  the  sky,  as  to  which  there  had  been  no  small 
futile  guessing,  he  does  not  hesitate  to  say, 
"By  the  scientific  use  of  imagination  we  may 
penetrate  this  mystery."  His  illustrations  are 
such  as  can  be  understood  by  anyone.  "Nour- 
ished by  knowledge  patiently  won,  bounded 
and  conditioned  by  cooperant  Reason,  imagina- 
tion becomes  the  prime  mover  of  the  physical 


40  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

discoverer.  Newton's  passage  from  a  falling 
apple  to  a  falling  moon  was,  at  the  outset,  a  leap 
of  the  prepared  imagination.  ...  In  fact,  with- 
out this  power,  our  knowledge  of  nature  would 
be  a  mere  tabulation  of  co-existences  and  se- 
quences. We  should  still  believe  in  the  suc- 
cession of  day  and  night,  summer  and  winter ; 
but  the  soul  of  Force  would  be  dislodged  from 
our  universe  ;  causal  relations  would  disappear, 
and  with  them  that  science  which  is  now  bind- 
ing the  parts  of  nature  to  an  organic  whole."  ^ 
Tyndall's  general  conception  of  imagination's 
office  to  science  is  happily  set  forth  in  his 
"Apology  for  the  Belfast  Address."  "  I  have 
sought  incidentally  to  make  clear  that  in  physics 
the  experiential  incessantly  leads  to  the  ultra- 
experiential  ;  that  out  of  experience  there 
always  grows  something  finer  than  mere  ex- 
perience, and  that  in  their  different  powers  of 
ideal  extension  consists,  for  the  most  part,  the 
difference  between  the  great  and  the  mediocre 
investigator.     The   kingdom   of   science,    then, 

1  "Fragments  of  Science,"  p.  426. 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE  41 

Cometh  not  by  observation  and  experiment 
alone,  but  is  completed  by  fixing  the  roots  of 
observation  and  experiment  in  a  region  inacces- 
sible to  both,  and  in  deaHng  with  which  we  are 
forced  to  fall  back  upon  the  picturing  power 
of  the  mind."i 

Thus  the  serviceableness  of  imagination  to 
truth  stands  unquestioned  at  the  two  opposite 
poles  of  mental  activity,  poetry  and  science. 
The  poet  by  common  consent,  the  scientist  by 
his  own  acknowledgment,  relies  upon  this 
singular  but  energetic  guide.  The  poet's  use 
of  imagination  is  easily  associated  in  our  minds 
with  its  office  to  religion,  because  religious 
themes  have  so  often  called  into  exercise  the 
poet's  gift ;  but  at  the  point  reached  by  Pro- 
fessor Tyndall  science  also  is  close  to  religion. 
The  physicist  who  needs,  and  who  feels  that 
he  needs,  the  purely  metaphysical  conceptions 
of  causation  and  force,  who  gladly  avows  the 
dependence  of  science  upon  these  imaginary 
realities,    which   he    still   holds   to   be  realities 

1  "  Fragments  of  Science,"  pp.  546-7. 


42  SERVICE    TO    TRUTH 

although  they  lie  quite  beyond  the  reach  of 
scientific  appliances  and  are  recognizable  by 
imagination  only,  the  physicist  who  goes  so  far 
as  this  should  not  hesitate  to  take  one  further 
"leap  of  prepared  imagination",  and  joyfully 
own  that  the  scientific  mind  needs  to  imagine 
the  Cause  of  all  causes,  the  Origin  of  all  force. 
At  least  they  who  believe  that  religion  deals 
with  unseen  realities  need  not  hesitate  to  avow 
their  debt  to  imagination,  that  is,  to  acknowl- 
edge the  importance  of  vividness  of  thought  to 
soundness  of  thought  on  religious  themes. 
That  these  themes  lie  within  the  scope  of  im- 
agination's normal  activity  can  be  best  assured 
if  we  notice  how  large  a  part  of  knowledge  faith 
is,  and  especially  how  large  a  part  of  faith  ima- 
gination is. 

3.    The  Case  For  Faith 

In  its  ripened  form  faith  is  trust.  But  the 
objects  of  religious  trust  are  out  of  sight,  and 
no  one  can  entrust  himself  to  the  unseen  unless 
he  forms  a  lively  enough  mental  image,  a  realiz- 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE         43 

ing  sense,  of  the  unseen.  One  must  be  des- 
perate indeed  to  throw  himself  through  a 
strange  window  into  the  dark,  not  knowing  how 
far  or  on  what  he  will  fall.  But  it  would  be 
irrational  to  imagine  unseen  realities,  unless 
their  existence  is  assured ;  so  that  religious 
faith  is  grounded  in  discernment  of  spiritual 
things.  It  is  first  knowing,  secondly  imaging, 
thirdly  trusting.  But  the  point  with  which  this 
inquiry  is  chiefly  concerned  is  that  the  cognitive 
function  of  faith,  the  recognition  that  spirituali- 
ties are  realities,  can  be  put  into  most  effective 
exercise  only  by  aid  of  imagination ;  the  two 
offices  of  knowing  and  realizing  interact  to  an 
extent  which  makes  them  interdependent. 

Others  may  claim,  but  it  is  not  here  claimed, 
that  faith  is  no  less  than  a  face  to  face  vision, 
an  intuition,  of  God.  If  by  intuition  no  more 
were  meant  than  "a  quick  perception  of  truth 
without  conscious  attention  or  reasoning",  an 
inkling  of  logical  relations  between  an  accepted 
notion  and  another  said  to  be  *'  intuited ",  a 
suggestion  of  the  second  by  the  first  through 


44  SERVICE   TO    TRUTH 

some  hint  of  congruity  or  kinship,  a  hint  strong 
enough  to  guide  the  mind  in  docile  moods,  but 
not  obtrusive  enough  to  be  noticed,  in  some 
such  sense  faith  might  be  "  intuition."  It  is  the 
form  in  which  the  most  conclusive  reasonings 
first  suggest  themselves.  In  this  manner 
women  are  said  to  know  intuitively  what  they 
cannot  make  good  by  argument.  A  wise  man 
used  to  say,  "  I  want  my  wife  to  give  me  her 
advice,  not  her  reasons  for  the  advice."  But  in 
the  strict  philosophical  sense  of  the  word  we 
can  claim  as  intuitions  only  direct  visions  of 
truth,  visions  of  truth  revealed  by  its  own  light. 
Self-evident  propositions  alone  are  known  by 
intuition  in  a  strict  sense  ;  and  yet  it  falls  to  us 
presently  to  consider  how  faith,  without  being 
intuition,  is  cognition. 

Two  stubborn  facts  seem  to  set  aside  the 
possibility  of  knowing  God  by  intuition.  It  will 
not  be  claimed  that  he  can  be  intuited  as  an 
external  object,  in  the  way  the  senses  know ; 
he  must  therefore,  if  intuited  at  all  as  an  entity, 
not  an  abstraction,  be  intuited  as  within  us,  in 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE  45 

the  way  we  know  ourselves  and  our  mental 
states.  But  what  reason  can  even  be  imagined 
for  saying  that  we  are  conscious  of  a  spirit 
within  our  bodies  beside  our  own  spirit  ?  Every 
thought,  emotion,  volition,  is  consciously  one's 
own ;  how  then  does  God  reveal  himself  within 
us  face  to  face  as  a  Being  not  ourselves  ? 
Whatever  may  be  said  of  prophetic  communi- 
cations from  God,  the  problem  for  us  is  not 
how  the  prophets  knew  God,  but  how  we  know 
him ;  and  so  far  as  we  are  concerned  it  would 
appear  that  any  alleged  inward  vision  of  God 
is  hallucination.  His  presence  in  us  must  be 
inferred  from  what  he  does  there ;  we  cannot 
see  him  there  as  One  not  ourselves.  The  other 
fact  against  the  claim  that  God  can  be  intuited 
is  that  self-evident  truths  are  necessarily  ulti- 
mate and  irresolvable  ideas.  If  they  could  be 
analyzed,  instead  of  being  self-evident  they 
would  be  provable  by  the  evidence  for  their 
elements.  But  the  idea  of  God  is  highly  com- 
plex. There  may  be  reason  for  accepting  each 
and    every   element    in    that   idea,   and    some 


46  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

further  reason  for  accepting  them  conjointly  ; 
but  the  vaHdity  of  this  latter  reason  is  depend- 
ent upon  that  of  the  former ;  in  other  words, 
is  inferential  not  intuitional. 

If  however  it  should  be  explained  that,  in 
claiming  an  intuition  of  the  divine  existence, 
one  means  only  that  the  infinite  is  a  logical 
correlate  of  the  finite,  the  absolute  of  the  de- 
pendent, that  a  rational  Creator  is  the  warrant 
for  confidence  in  human  reason,  and  a  Lawgiver 
involved  in  the  obligation  to  obey  moral  law  — 
then  it  should  at  once  be  conceded  that,  in 
knowing  the  temporal,  we  know  that  something 
is  eternally  preexistent,  and  in  knowing  the 
dependent  we  know  there  is  something  for  it 
to  depend  upon;  but  it  would  still  need  to  be 
proved,  as  I  think  it  can  be,  that  the  physical 
universe  is  not  the  eternal  and  absolute  ;  and 
it  would  remain  that,  while  reason  and  con- 
science furnish  the  basis  for  an  excellent  argu- 
ment, it  is  still  an  argument,  —  we  may  infer 
God  from  reason  and  conscience,  not  intuit  him 
in  them.     We  must  accept,  to  begin  with,  the 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE         47 

facts  that  reason  is  trustworthy  and  moral 
difference  real,  or  else  we  cannot  confide  in 
any  affirmation  of  reason  that  God  exists,  nor 
be  certain  that  we  ascribe  to  him  a  reality  when 
•we  say  he  is  holy  and  requires  us  to  be  holy. 
In  no  way,  then,  does  it  seem  possible  to  intuit 
God,  that  is,  dispense  with  inference  from  evi- 
dence that  God  is. 

With  this  disavowal  of  all  pretence  that  faith 
can  know  God  either  by  demonstration  or  by 
intuition,  but  claiming  none  the  less  that  it  can 
reach  a  moral  certainty  so  secure  as  to  serve 
every  purpose  of  spiritual  knowledge,  and  to 
deserve  the  name  of  knowledge  concerning 
matters  within  its  sphere,  we  will  consider  a 
little  more  fully  in  what  way  such  claims  can 
be  justified,  and  thereby  imagination's  service 
to  spiritual  truth  be  more  clearly  defined. 

A  compendious  statement  of  the  case  will 
have  to  be  made  in  terms  too  abstract  to  carry 
conviction,  but  the  relations  of  the  points  in- 
volved will  be  the  more  obvious  after  this  sum- 
mary.    The  case,  then,  for  faith  is  in  brief; 


48  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

Thinking  men  are  in  possession  of  ideas 
which  they  cannot  but  recognize  as  true  ;  cer- 
tain of  these  ideas  are  concerns  not  of  intellec- 
tion alone,  but  of  all  our  highest  powers,  and 
to  give  employment  to  our  highest  powers  is 
the  highest  end  of  our  existence  ;  when  these 
ideas  are  summed  up  in  one  Being,  the  All- 
perfect,  he  is  recognized  as  our  Archetype,  the 
complement,  the  other  part  of  what  at  our  best 
we  are  ;  but  faith  thus  discerns  God  only  when 
the  ideas  summed  up  in  him  are  made  luminous 
by  imagination.  Let  us  notice  each  of  these 
points  in  turn. 

4.   The  First  Point  for  Faith — Thoughts 
We  Must  Think 

Thinking  men  think  thoughts  which  they 
must  recognize  as  true.  But  it  is  the  high 
privilege  of  imagination  to  behold  as  realities 
those  primary  beliefs  or  first  truths  to  which 
all  faith  and  knowledge  are  subordinate  and 
illustrative.  Such  truths  are  irresolvable  and 
elementary   as    primary   colors,   self-evident  as 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE  49 

the  sunbeam,  august  as  the  sun.  The  vaHdity 
of  a  mere  animal's  knowledge  rests  on  the 
validity  of  first  truths ;  but  a  beast  cannot 
know  these,  therefore  cannot  know  that  he 
knows.  To  know  them,  to  see  their  necessity 
without  being  able  either  to  prove  or  disprove 
them,  is  the  highest  function  of  rational  intel- 
ligence. It  is  to  know  something  at  the  bottom 
of  all  reality  in  the  same  way  that  the  Omni- 
scient knows  all  reality :  it  is  to  ijittiit  truth. 
If  one  of  these  truths  could  be  presented  to 
the  understanding  of  a  beast,  he  would  cower 
before  it,  as  a  demon  cowers  before  the  face 
of  God.  The  intolerable  majesty  of  reason 
belongs  to  these  simple  ideas,  and  in  their 
presence  all  philosophical  empiricism  shrivels 
into  philosophical  nescience.  They  are  abstrac- 
tions, one  and  all.  Some  of  them  are  axioms 
of  physical  science,  some  of  mental  science ; 
some  are  axioms  of  moral  significance,  others 
directly  of  spiritual  or  religious  significance. 

I  venture  to  cite  first  the  axiom  fundamental 
in  physics,  that  every  event  has  a  cause.     This 


50  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

venture  is  made  notwithstanding  that  George 
John  Romanes,^  in  his  posthumous  ''Thoughts 
on  Religion ",  maintains  that  the  sphere  of 
causation,  which  he  identifies  with  physics,  is 
on    this    side  the  border  of   the  sphere  which 

1  This  thorough-going  agnostic  is  one  of  the  open-minded 
to  whom  truth  comes  by  other  avenues  than  sense-perception 
only.  The  following  citations  from  his  widely  welcomed 
posthumous  "  Thoughts  on  Religion "  indicate  his  general 
position  and  the  extent  to  which  it  corresponds  with  that  of 
these  pages.  The  word  "  reason  "  is  understood  by  his  editor 
to  be  used  in  the  sense  of  "  reasoning." 

"  Reason  is  not  the  only  attribute  of  man,  nor  is  it  the 
only  faculty  which  he  habitually  employs  for  the  ascertain- 
ment of  truth.  Moral  and  spiritual  faculties  are  of  no  less 
importance  in  their  respective  spheres  of  everyday  life  ;  faith, 
trust,  taste,  etc.,  are  as  needful  in  ascertaining  truth  as  to 
character,  beauty, etc.,  as  is  reason.  Indeed  we  may  take  it 
that  reason  is  concerned  in  ascertaining  truth  orJy  where 
causation  is  concerned ;  the  appropriate  organs  for  its  ascer- 
tainment when  anything  else  is  concerned  belong  to  the  moral 
and  spiritual  region  "  (p.  Ii8).  "No  one  is  entitled  to  deny 
the  possibility  of  what  may  be  termed  an  organ  of  spiritual 
discernment.  In  fact  to  do  so  would  be  to  vacate  the  posi- 
tion of  pure  agnosticism  /'«  toto^^  (p.  149).  "To  believe 
necessitates  a  spiritual  use  of  the  imagination"  (p.  154). 

These  are  not  novel  doctrines.  They  are  almost  com- 
monplaces with  Christian  thinkers  ;  but  it  is  a  hopeful  sign 
that  a  consistent  agnostic  adopts  them.  Religion  thus  be- 
comes for  him  not  a  matter  of  faith  alone,  but  virtually  of 
knowledge  also,  and  of  knowledge  because  it  is  of  faith. 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE  5  I 

"pure  agnosticism  "  assigns  to  spiritual  things  ; 
while  at  the  same  time  he  asserts  the  reality 
of  spiritual  knowledge  based  on  extra-physical 
phenomena.  But  how  to  exclude  the  causal 
judgment  from  influence  upon  our  religious 
convictions  I  am  unable  to  see.  Especially 
when  we  reflect  that  this  judgment  is  not 
merely  that  every  event  has  a  cause,  but  that, 
in  order  to  have  any  cause,  every  event  must 
have  a  first  cause.  For  it  is  admitted  on 
almost  every  hand  that  we  have  an  idea  of 
causation  only  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  we 
are  consciously  self-determined  beings,  our- 
selves first  causes ;  and  so  it  has  come  to  pass 
that  the  mind  cannot  rest  until  the  chain  of 
effects  has  been  traced  back  to  Will  as  the 
First  Cause,  the  Cause  of  causes,  and  there- 
fore, except  other  wills,  the  only  real  cause. 

Second  among  indisputable  truths  which  have 
a  religious  importance  is  the  axiom  in  morals 
that  there  is  an  intrinsic  difference  between 
right  and  wrong ;  together  with  the  associated 
axiom,  which    is    but    the  former  stated   more 


52  SERVICE    TO    TRUTH 

at  large,  that  whatever  in  any  circumstances  is 
the  right  thing  to  do  it  is  duty  to  do,  and 
whatever  is  wrong  ought  never  to  be  done. 
To  this  may  be  added  the  axiom  which  aesthetic 
sensibiUty  insists  upon,  and  which  to  the  artist 
is  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  a  direct 
concern  of  religion,  that  there  is  a  real  differ- 
ence between  the  beautiful  and  the  ugly,  be- 
tween the  sublime  and  the  mean.  It  is  another 
self-evident  truth  that  there  is  a  distinction 
between  the  lovable  and  the  unlovely. 

Finally,  it  may  be  alleged  as  a  notion  distinct 
from  all  of  these  as  each  of  them  is  from  every 
other,  that  the  sentiment  of  trust,  the  inward 
commitment  of  oneself  to  a  not-self,  rests 
warrantably  upon  a  real  distinction  between 
the  trustworthy  and  the  untrustworthy,  —  a  dis- 
tinction in  fact  which  is  apprehended  by  a 
sentiment  not  to  be  confounded  with  intel- 
lectual conviction  through  proofs.  This,  then, 
is  the  first  point  in  behalf  of  faith  :  thinking 
men  are  in  possession  of  certain  ideas  which 
they  cannot  but  recognize  as  true. 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE  53 

5.  The     Second    Point    for    Faith  —  High 
Knowing  by  Deep  Feeling 

The  second  point  for  faith  is  that  these  axioms 
do  not  belong  to  the  sphere  of  intellection,  but 
to  that  of  our  highest  powers  ;  and  mere  intel- 
lection or  understanding  is  not  one  of  our  highest 
powers.  Concerning  all  these  first  truths  we 
have  moral,  convictions  as  irresistible  as  dem- 
onstrations ;  indeed  they  afford  us  fuller  as- 
surance concerning  spiritual  things  than  logical 
demonstrations  could  afford.  This  is  partly  be- 
cause moral  conviction  is  alone  germane  to 
spiritual  things,  partly  because  such  things  be- 
long to  the  domain  of  our  highest  powers,  and 
these  powers  recognize  and  assert  their  rights 
against  all  inferior  claimants.  Now  it  is  certain 
that  no  one  of  these  axioms  belongs  to  the 
sphere  of  intellection  only.  That  events  must 
have  a  cause  we  come  to  know  through  the  fact 
that  we  ourselves  form  volitions,  or  if  you  please, 
create  volitions;  and  creating  volitions  is  no 
more  a  process  of  intellection  than  feeling  angry 


54  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

is.  But  intellect  recognizes  the  reality  of  the 
volitional  process,  and  henceforth  thinks  that 
events  are  caused.  There  is  no  proving  that 
any  difference  exists  between  right  and  wrong, 
whatever  difference  may  be  experienced  between 
the  advantages  of  the  one  and  the  inconveniences 
of  the  other.  No  one  can  demonstrate  that 
aesthetic  excellence  is  more  than  arithmetical 
relation  in  the  case  of  sound,  color,  or  even 
of  form ;  but  the  deaf  and  the  blind  can 
know  all  the  mathematics  of  beauty  without 
knowing  aught  of  beauty  in  either  sight  or 
sound.  No  arguments  could  persuade  the 
heartless  that  love  is  other  than  silliness ; 
and  a  few  take  it  to  be  the  part  of  wisdom  to 
withhold  trust  from  all  men  alike,  even,  so  far 
as  possible,  from  all  things  except  scientific 
demonstrations.  But  that  each  of  these  moral, 
aesthetic  and  kindred  sentiments  is  a  just  sen- 
timent, each  a  discernment  of  reality,  remains 
as  indisputable  as  that  two  things  which  are 
equal  to  a  third  are  equal  to  each  other.  In- 
tellect  has   no   more   capability   of    sentiment, 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE  55 

or  of  knowing  the  true  and  false  in  sentiment, 
than  the  ear  has  of  seeing  or  the  eye  of  smell- 
ing ;  yet  intellect  itself  notes  the  activity  of 
the.  other  faculties  of  knowledge,  and  knows 
that  they  know. 

To  repeat,  it  is  the  distinction  of  reason, 
as  more  than  mere  intelligence,  to  know  all 
first  truths  as  directly  as  the  senses  know  im- 
pressions upon  them  ;  that  is,  without  the  possi- 
bility and  without  the  need  of  proof.  Where 
reasoning  cannot  tunnel  a  way.  Reason  like  a 
good  engineer  can  show  whither  the  way  should 
run,  and  often  as  on  wings  can  carry  us  over 
obstacles  which  no  engineering  would  be  able  to 
pierce  or  to  surmount. 

It  is  a  further  mark  of  exalted  rank  in  these 
sentiments  which  are  knowledges  that  the  im- 
portance of  exercising  them  is  felt  only  when 
they  are  exercised,  and  by  exercise  highly  de- 
veloped. All  our  faculties  need  employment, 
and  this  need  is  a  kind  of  physiological  basis 
alike  of  physical  appetites  and  of  mental  appe- 
tencies.    If    one    is  hungry,    it    is    because  his 


56  SERVICE  TO   TRUTH 

digestive  apparatus  needs  something  to  do ;  a 
child  unduly  restrained  has  a  muscular  yearning 
for  motion;  curiosity  is  the  mind's  appetency 
for  the  exercise  of  learning.  But  we  become 
painfully  conscious  of  physical  needs  when  they 
cannot  be  met,  as  we  thirst  when  we  have 
nothing  to  drink,  and  pant  for  air  when  we 
sorely  lack  air  ;  whereas  the  higher  powers,  if 
continually  unexercised,  grow  comfortably  atro- 
phied, and  it  is  their  active  employment  alone 
which  at  the  same  time  elevates  us  and  makes 
us  feel  how  much  we  need  the  very  objects 
that  we  possess  and  use.  Only  friendship  can 
teach  us  how  beyond  price  a  friend  is.  The 
irreligious  are  contented  to  remain  "  without  God 
in  the  world ",  while  saintly  men  consciously 
require  him.  And  if  there  are  human  beings 
in  another  world  who  have  escaped  from  sin 
and  who  see  God  ;  if  there  are  angelic  beings 
above  these,  or  archangels  above  angels ;  if 
Jesus  is  there,  is  higher  than  other  beings, 
is  in  any  sense  divine,  and  has  received  the 
answer  to  his  prayer,  "  Now,  O  Father,  glorify 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGMATION'S  SERi/ICE         57 

thou  me  with  thine  own  self", — these  all,  in 
proportion  as  they  are  more  able  than  we  to 
employ  themselves  with  God,  and  so  to  possess 
God,  in  that  proportion  are  more  fully  aware 
than  we  can  be  how  dependent  they  are  upon 
Him  of  whom  a  pious  Hebrew  wrote,  "  O  God, 
thou  art  my  God ;  my  soul  thirsteth  for  thee, 
my  flesh  longeth  for  thee." 

If  any  further  vindication  is  needed  of  the 
high  rank  which  belongs  to  those  sentiments 
that  apprehend  the  moral  and  spiritual,  this  vin- 
dication may  easily  be  gathered  from  the  famil- 
iar doctrine  of  evolution.  Evolution  upon  the 
whole  is  progress.  For  this  reason  the  ideas 
characteristic  of  highly  developed  human  beings 
are  proportionately  veracious.  But  it  is  at  once 
apparent  that  lofty  moral  and  spiritual  senti- 
ments are  characteristic  of  the  most  highly 
developed  races  of  men,  while  the  entire  ab- 
sence of  such  sentiments  would  be  a  mark  of 
imbruted  savagery. 


58  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

6.  The  Third  Point  for  Faith  —  Veracity 
OF  Unified  Ideals 

The  first  point,  then,  for  faith  is  that  it 
belongs  to  us  to  know  without  reasons  given 
the  certain  truth  of  the  statements  that  every 
event  has  a  cause,  a  real  cause,  i.  e.,  a  first 
cause  ;  that  there  is  a  difference  between  right 
and  wrong,  with  corresponding  obligation  to  do 
and  not  do  ;  and  that  the  beautiful  and  sublime, 
the  lovable,  the  trustworthy  are  realities.  The 
second  point  for  faith  is  that  it  is  by  virtue  of 
rationality,  by  virtue  of  his  high  place  in  the 
scale  of  being,  that  man  knows  these  truths  as 
self-evident.  The  third  point  concerns  the 
effect  produced  upon  the  mind  by  uniting  these 
self-evident  truths  in  an  Ideal  which  is  capable 
of  embracing  them  all.  It  will  prepare  us  to 
appreciate  the  immeasurable  importance  of  the 
soul's  response  if  we  approach  the  consideration 
of  it  through  a  due  recognition  of  the  fact  that, 
while  each  of  these  first  truths,  these  ideal  real- 
ities, is  recognized  by  a  faculty  appropriate  to 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE         59 

it,  and  the  knowledge  of  it  is  so  far  independ- 
ent, yet  appreciation  of  one  of  these  reaHties 
reenforces  appreciation  of  all  the  others,  and  the 
sentiinents  which  they  evoke  are  so  far  inter- 
dependent. It  is  reason  pure  and  simple  which, 
in  the  experience  of  volition,  knows  that  all 
events  have  causes  ;  it  is  conscience,  in  the 
popular  sense,  which  knows  there  is  a  differ- 
ence between  right  and  wrong ;  aesthetic  faculty 
which  knows  aesthetic  reality;  the  heart  which 
knows  the  lovable,  and  a  special  responsiveness 
which  recognizes  the  trustworthy  in  that  which 
meets  our  needs.  But  mark  now  that  reason 
itself,  which  frames  the  causal  judgment,  is 
thwarted  if  no  worthy  cause  can  be  found  for 
these  other  high  sentiments  of  ours  ;  that  con- 
science in  turn  looks  to  a  First  Cause  as  its 
final  standard,  and  would  be  confounded  by 
learning  that  it  was  not  also  supremely  lovable 
and  trustworthy  ;  that  the  aesthetic  appreciation 
of  ideal  beauty  and  grandeur,  the  rendering  to 
it  of  the  glory  which  is  its  due,  the  ''transcend- 
ent wonder  "  at  it,  which  Carlyle  saw  to  be  the 


6o  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH  , 

essence  of  worship,  is  aroused  not  by  any  phys- 
ical beauty,  as  though  it  were  a  body,  but  by 
its  great  nature  and  place  as  Origin,  as  Moral 
Archetype,  as  worthy  of  limitless  love  and 
trust  ;  that  the  heart  loves  with  all  its  might 
only  that  which  for  good  reason  is  also  most 
admired  ;  finally  that  the  sentiment  of  trust 
goes  out  unreservedly  toward  that  alone  which 
is  adapted  to  every  faculty  of  the  soul,  therefore 
sufficient  for  all  its  needs.  The  permutations 
which  we  can  make  of  these  several  ideal  ob- 
jects, and  the  interplay  of  sentiments  thus  pro- 
voked, are  extremely  fascinating  to  a  normal 
and  disciplined  mind,  producing,  indeed,  an  ela- 
tion felt  to  be  almost  the  highest  privilege  of  a 
reasonable  being.  To  confront  any  one  of  these 
ultimate  realities  without  an  emotion  is  abnor- 
mal to  an  extent  shocking  and  depressing  to  a 
rnind  which  discovers  in  itself  such  unrespon- 
siveness. To  combine  them  all  in  one  view,  to 
face  the  all-inclusive  Ideal,  and  to  be  thrilled  at 
it,  almost  overpowered  by  it,  this  is  to  recog- 
nize against  all  odds  of  scepticism  that  we  have 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE  6l 

a  vision  of  realities,  of  the  most  exalted  real- 
ities, and  that  they  are  all  phases  of  one  Real- 
ity. For  this  is  only  to  recognize  that  the 
several  faculties  employed  are  coherent  and  co- 
operative faculties  of  one  human  mind.  Man 
takes  the  high  place  which  belongs  to  him  when 
he  gives  play  to  these  sentiments  and  employs 
these  powers. 

But  in  all  this  there  is  one  thing  utterly  pre- 
posterous and  revolting,  the  talk  about  It.  This 
is  not  truth-telling  talk.  A  mere  It  never 
awakens  in  plain  men  the  sentiments  alleged, 
still  less  the  alleged  interplay  and  exaltation  of 
sentiment.  Men  have  shown  themselves  capable 
of  worshiping  idols,  but  never  of  worshiping 
an  ideal  It.  Not  even  philosophers  can  hold 
themselves  to  the  rule  of  It.  The  one  that  all 
ideal  realities  cohere  in  is  he.  The  soul's  re- 
sponse is  to  an  ideal  person.  Such  a  response 
when  perfected  is  trust  ;  on  its  way  to  perfect- 
ing it  is  a  realizing  sense  that  God  is ;  and  to 
begin  with  is  more  or  less  certitude  that  He  is. 
Rationality  longs  only  for  Him,  not  for  abstract 


62  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

ideals,  will  have  Him  or  nothing.  When  our 
faculties  are  busied  with  God  and  are  satisfied, 
they  possess  God  and  cannot  be  persuaded  that 
they  possess  a  nothing.  Each  step  of  the  pro- 
cess is  a  stage  of  faith,  and  at  each  step  faith  is 
like  a  moving  tripod,  every  foot  sustains  that 
which  rests  on  all  three  alike.  Knowing,  real- 
izing, trusting ;  recognizing,  imagining,  confid- 
ing, these  constitute  faith  in  the  Being  whom 
true  religion  offers  to  human  souls.  Thus  the 
third  point  for  faith  is  that,  when  our  truest  and 
loftiest  ideals  are  summed  up  in  one  All-perfect 
Being,  he  is  recognized  as  our  Archetype,  the 
complement,  the  other  part  of  what  at  our  best 
we  are. 

7.  The  Fourth  Point  for  Faith  —  Imagina- 
tion CAN  Handle  the  Case 

The  fourth  point  for  faith,  and  the  especial 
concern  of  this  little  treatise,  is  that  effective 
dealing  with  the  idea  of  a  Supreme  Person  is 
possible  only  through  religious  use  of  imagi- 
nation, and  is  often  lacking   only   because  that 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE        63 

use  is  not  resorted  to.  If  religion  uses  first 
truths  as  we  do  the  foundations  of  a  house, 
builds  on  them  and  hides  them,  or  as  mathe- 
matics does  with  its  axioms,  forgets  them  after 
a  first  respectful  glance  at  them,  religion  may 
indeed  secure  from  these  truths  the  logical  ser- 
vice of  unconsciously  assumed  postulates,  but 
that  is  all.  Their  real  religious  significance  is 
significance  to  imagination,  at  least  not  to  logic 
apart  from  imagination.  When  they  are  duly 
imagined  the  mind's  eye  traces  them  far  below 
the  point  where  we  think  of  foundations  as  be- 
ginning. It  sees  them  running  down  and  down 
into  the  center.  Where  the  core  of  the  world 
is  there  are  they,  and  that  world-core  they  are. 
Nothing  underlies  them.  All  that  we  perhaps 
think  of  as  beneath  them,  like  the  idea  of  God, 
as  certainly  rests  on  them  as  do  the  hither 
truths.  It  is  when  imagination  thus  sounds  the 
depths  of  fundamental  reality  that  this  reality 
begins  to  be  felt ;  that  is,  to  be  accorded  a 
"judgment  of  its  worth;"  that  is,  to  be  veri- 
tably known  and  actually  faced. 


64  SERVICE  TO   TRUTH 

If,  then,  no  one  can  deny  first  truths  out  and 
out,  although  he  may  try  to  beUttle  our  god- 
like intuition  of  them  into  a  semi-intelligent 
habit  of  making  a  convenience  of  them  ;  if  to 
feel  their  significance  is  but  sheer  rationality, 
the  preeminent  note  of  man's  superiority  to 
brute  intelligence  and  feeling,  we  are  not  even 
yet  giving  imagination  her  full  due  until  w^e 
acknowledge  that  these  lordliest  functions  of 
absolute  reason  come  into  full  exercise  only  by 
imagination's  aid. 

This  is  not  because  spiritual  realities  or  ab- 
stract principles  are  in  a  position  of  unparalleled 
difficulty.  The  proverb  has  it  that  facts  out  of 
sight  are  also  out  of  mind,  By  a  happy  inert- 
ness of  imagination  this  is  constantly  the  case 
with  matters  which  being  imagined  would  make 
life  dismal  indeed.  Every  household  must  be 
broken  up  ;  but  I  never  heard  of  a  man  and  a 
woman  who,  when  they  took  one  another  to  have 
and  to  hold  until  death  them  do  part,  forthwith 
fell  to  bewailing  the  certainty  that  death  must 
part  them.     Of  all  the  preposterous  woes  by 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE         65 

which  early  wedlock  might  be  disturbed,  no 
humorist  has  asked  us  to  fancy  the  honeymoon 
desolated  by  pictures  of  the  final  agony  and  the 
loneliness  which  must  follow.  Or  when  those 
who  hold  to  lasting  punishment  beyond  the 
grave  are  twitted  with  their  insensibility  to  so 
appalling  a  belief,  and  even  told  that  if  they  be- 
lieved as  they  say  they  could  never  smile  again, 
it  would  be  quite  fair  to  reply,  "  We  do  not 
realize  all  that  we  believe."  In  like  manner  it  is 
necessary  to  realize  God  in  order  to  elicit  a  re- 
sponse of  rational  emotion.  To  look  for  such 
emotion  without  vivid  imagination  of  Him  who 
is  the  sum  of  all  truth,  the  unity  of  all  ideals,  is 
as  idle  as  the  dreamy  tracing  of  the  endless  lines 
which  run  every  whither  from  oneself  as  from 
the  center  of  the  universe,  and  to  fall  asleep  in 
tracing  them.  But  imagination  sometimes  rolls 
this  very  notion  of  immensity  like  a  mountain 
upon  the  soul.  If  it  is  a  profanation  to  utter 
the  name  of  God  in  vain,  how  much  less  impious 
are  men's  thoughts  about  an  unimagined  God  .-^ 
The    profanity  of  a  lazy   idea  concerning    the 


66  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

Most  High  is  quite  certainly  proportionate  to 
the  degree  that  it  is  unimaginative.  Surely  it  is 
hopeless  to  attempt  bringing  idle  minds  to  a 
clear  conviction  of  any  kind  with  regard  to  the 
Deity  unless  they  will  direct  toward  him  the 
telescope  of  imagination. 

But  to  imagine  him  is  like  sunlight  on  green 
leaves ;  the  light  is  absorbed,  and  the  whole 
vitality  of  the  plant  becomes  operative.  I  have 
noticed  now  and  then  a  small  room  which 
thrilled  to  a  tone  of  special  pitch,  and  only 
feebly,  if  at  all,  to  other  tones.  A  human  soul 
is  many-chambered,  and  the  thought  of  God 
is  a  loud,  full  harmony  of  many  notes  which 
wake  up  a  resonance  as  harmonious.  Our 
faculties  are  strangely  attuned  to  the  idea  of 
God.  It  is  because  he  has  made  us  for  himself. 
When  harmony  fills  the  soul  at  the  idea  of 
God  we  are  assured  that  he  himself  has  spoken, 
and  that  we  have  heard.  Men  always  listen  for 
some  response  in  their  own  nature  as  a  test  of 
religious  doctrine.  It  is  when  they  hear  partial 
answers  that  they  mistakenly  believe  themselves 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE        6/ 

to  hear  a  true  answer.  But  an  answer  to 
religion  from  within  they  will  have,  or  they  will 
have  none  of  the  religion. 

For  the  most  of  their  hours  men's  souls  are 
unthrilled  by  any  thought  of  God,  and  religion 
is  as  little  a  function  of  their  hearts.  But  this 
is  plainly  because  imagination  does  not  make 
their  dim  eyes  see,  their  dull  ears  hear.  The 
capability  of  imagination  is  then  emphasized  by 
the  neglect  of  it,  and  by  neglect  just  when  an 
appeal  to  imagination's  aid  purports  to  be  made. 
I  know  no  more  decisive  illustration  than  the 
habit  of  profane  swearing.  A  startling  idea 
is  always  called  for  by  a  curse.  Vulgar  inca- 
pacity of  utterance  seeks  to  surpass  all  legiti- 
mate force  of  speech  by  words  august  or 
terrifying.  But  imagination  becomes  utterly 
fagged  out  by  the  too  constant  and  extravagant 
appeal.  She  does  not  make  the  least  response. 
If  she  did,  what  terror  would  smite  the  curser, 
what  awe  press  down  the  reckless  mouther  of 
the  Sacred  Name.  This  is  testimony  enough, 
one  would  suppose,   to  what  we  may  look  to 


68  SERVICE  OF   TRUTH 

imagination  for,  if  a  sense  of  spiritual  things  is 
reverently  and  earnestly  coveted.  From  the 
most  rudimentary  of  first  truths  to  the  most 
complex  and  exalted  conception  of  the  Deity, 
it  falls  to  imagination  alone  to  make  spirituali- 
ties seem  realities. 

8.   How  THE  Queen's  Gun  Lied 

Of  course  partial  answers  to  great  questions 
are  often  false  answers.  Men  accept  as  of 
divine  authority  a  mere  fantasy  of  their  own. 
Not  long  ago  it  was  the  custom  in  a  pretty  vil- 
lage on  the  south  bank  of  the  St.  Lawrence  to 
set  all  the  clocks  and  watches  by  her  Majesty's 
gun  which  was  fired  at  noon  from  a  fort  on  the 
Canada  side.  Everybody  knew  just  how  many 
seconds  to  allow  the  sound  for  crossing  the 
wide  stream,  and  those  good  Americans  were 
as  happy  in  possessing  the  Queen's  time  as 
though  it  had  been  telegraphed  to  them  from 
Greenwich.  I  happened  to  be  in  the  Canadian 
fort  one  day  when  the  old  sergeant  came  out 
from  barracks  to  fire  the  noon  gun.     And  lo  ! 


SCOPE  OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE         69 

he  had  in  his  hand  a  little  round  American  clock, 
one  of  those  Ansonia  products  which  could  be 
bought  for  half  a  dollar  or  so.  "And  do  you 
fire  the  gun  always  by  that  clock  ? "  "  Al- 
ways," said  the  brave  sergeant.  **And  what 
do  you  set  the  clock  by?"  "By  the  town 
clock,"  quoth  he.  "And  the  town  clock,  what 
is  that  set  by.-*"  That  was  as  might  happen  ; 
he  didn't  know.  And  so  the  American  vil- 
lagers, who  reverently  set  their  clocks  on  the 
pompous  authority  of  a  British  cannon,  were 
deferring  after  all  to  the  cheapest  kind  of 
timepiece  made  in  their  own  land  of  liberty. 
I  dare  say  they  do  it  still.  Americans  are 
reverent  of  royalty. 

The  error  of  a  false  faith  is  neither  amus- 
ing nor  trivial.  It  is  so  disastrous  that  guaran- 
tees are  generally  demanded  for  a  pretended 
revelation  of  new  truth.  But,  however  impos- 
ing and  convincing  the  guarantees,  even  though 
they  are  miracles  of  the  Christ,  "  works  which 
none  other  man  did,"  in  the  end  a  real  revela- 
tion  is  sure  to  be  accepted  and  faith  in  it  to 


l^' 


70  SERVICE  OF  TRUTH 

abide,  because  it  sets  forth  some  spiritual  fact 
which  only  the  mind's  eye  can  discern,  but 
which  is  sufficiently  kept  before  the  mind  by 
imagination.  If  untruth  is  accepted,  this  is 
not  because  imagination  has  deluded  the  un- 
wary, but  because  only  part  of  the  facts  have 
been  imagined.  From  the  gun's  great  noise 
the  village  folk  inferred  royal  authority  for  the 
time  o'  day,  and  so  far  were  right  ;  but  it  never 
occurred  to  them  that  the  queen  would  lend  her 
authority  to  an  Ansonia  clock.  It  is  precisely 
so  with  theoretical  errors  ;  and  it  no  more  fol- 
lows that  imagination  is  misleading  as  to  unseen 
things  than  that  observation  is  misleading  as  to 
things  seen.  In  one  way  or  another  all  the 
pertinent  facts  must  be  held  in  view.  If  the  facts 
are  beyond  the  senses  they  can  be  viewed  only 
by  imagination,  and  in  all  such  cases  faith  fails 
and  knowledge  fails  when  imagination  fails. 
"  The  imagination  is  conscious  of  an  inde- 
structible dominion  ;  —  the  Soul  may  fall  away 
from  it,  not  being  able  to  sustain  its  grandeur  ; 
but,  if  once  felt  and  acknowledged,  by  no  act 


SCOPE   OF  IMAGINATION'S  SERVICE         7 1 

of  any  other   faculty  of  the  mind  can  it  be  re- 
relaxed,  impaired  or  diminished."  ^ 

To  sum  up  what  has  been  presented  concern- 
ing the  competence  of  imagination  to  serve 
religious  truth,  and  the  scope  of  that  compe- 
tence :  vigorous  imagination  of  religious  things, 
as  of  anything  else,  makes  it  harder  to  hold 
incongruous  notions  about  them ;  makes  it 
easier  to  discover  new  truth  about  them ;  is 
always  an  element  of  normal  religious  faith. 
Thus  it  will  appear  that  the  imagination  may  be 
looked  to  as  a  resolver  of  some  at  least  among 
the  puzzling  and  even  disabling  problems  of  the 
day,  that  it  secures  and  accounts  for  the  per- 
sistence of  essential  Christianity  through  all 
days,  and  not  only  throws  open  the  gate  but 
leads  the  way  in  all  real  advance  of  religious 
knowledge.  Claims  so  sweeping  can  be  readily 
tested  on  those  living  problems.  Sample  cases 
may  be  grouped  as  problems  concerning  God  as 
the  Creator,  the  Ruler,  the  Father. 

1  Wordsworth's  "  Lyrical  Ballads,"  Preface  to  edition  of 
1815. 


72  SERVICE   OF   TRUTH 


III 

PROBLEMS  AS   TO    THE   CREATOR 
I.    Imagine  Change 

The  main  problem  is,  Has  the  universe  had 
a  Creator  ?  Yes,  is  the  only  reply  which 
imagination  can  tolerate.  The  mind  cannot 
help  attempting  to  picture  an  origin  for  such 
features  of  the  universe  as  motion,  order,  fit- 
ness, life,  personality.  I  am  not  about  to  argue 
from  these  that  God  exists,  except  so  far  as  the 
imaginability  of  theism  and  unimaginability  of 
atheism  may  be  an  argument.  If  our  business 
were  to  prove  the  truth  of  theism,  the  facts 
above  mentioned  would  be  adduced,  but  in  a 
way  quite  different  from  that  which  will  be 
followed.  Our  problem  is.  What  origin  can 
imagination  make  out  for  these  facts } 

Motion  is  incessant  and  universal.  The 
most  obdurate    minerals  are    changing.     If  we 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO    THE  CREATOR  73 

accept  the  current  philosophy  of  atoms,  the 
enduring  diamond  is  a  congeries  of  atomic 
motions,  and  it  is  to  the  intensity  of  its  unob- 
served activities  that  its  seeming  fixity  is  due. 
The  spectacle  before  all  eyes  is  a  world  under- 
going a  process.  Every  step  of  the  process 
requires  as  its  antecedent,  its  cause,  an  earlier 
step.  Imagine  the  receding  series.  Try  to 
imagine  it  as  running  back  to  eternity.  Can 
we  do  it  .?  If  an  entire  chain  must  fall  to  the 
ground  unless  hung  up  by  one  of  its  links, 
imagination  does  not  see  what  can  keep  it  from 
falling  even  though  there  is  no  end  of  links. 
Say  that  the  links  are  changes,  that  every 
change  depends  on  a  previous  change,  that 
therefore  the  series  cannot  have  been  infinite ; 
and  then  someone  will  surely  reply  that  this 
is  to  beg  the  question,  that  no  beginning  is 
needed  for  that  which  always  existed,  the  infinite 
series.  Evidently,  if  bent  on  arguing  the  point, 
we  must  go  about  it  in  some  other  way;  but 
our  only  concern  is  with  the  fact  that  a  series 
of  finite  changes  from  eternity  is  unimaginable. 


74  SERVICE   TO    TRUTH 

Try  then  an  idealistic  conception  ;  exclude 
the  easily  imaginable  solidity  of  atoms,  and  we 
face  the  challenge  in  which  the  wit  of  Pro- 
fessor Tyndall  uses  for  another  purpose  the 
critical  acumen  of  imagination  :  "Ask  your  ima- 
gination if  it  will  accept  a  vibrating  multiple 
proportion  —  a  numerical  ratio  in  a  state  of 
oscillation  ?  I  do  not  think  that  it  will.  You 
cannot  crown  the  edifice  with  this  abstraction. 
The  scientific  imagination,  which  is  here 
authoritative,  demands,  as  the  origin  and  cause 
of  a  series  of  ether  waves,  a  particle  of  vibrat- 
ing matter  quite  as  definite,  though  it  may  be 
excessively  minute,  as  that  which  gives  origin 
to  a  musical  sound."  ^  That  is,  whatever  diffi- 
culty the  imagination  meets  with  in  achieving 
a  realizing  sense  of  an  eternally  preexistent 
series  of  interactions  between  atomic  things,  it 
cannot  replace  this  by  interactions  without 
beginning  between  abstractions,  or  no-things ; 
because  abstractions  in  no  case  have  physical 
properties,  and  so  for  all  physical  purposes  are 

1  "Fragments  of  Science,"  p.  431. 


PROBLEMS  AS    TO    THE   CREATOR  75 

non-entities.  Even  though  they  were  not  so, 
the  ideahstic  hypothesis  of  an  infinite  uncaused 
series  of  caused  ideas  lends  itself  much  less 
readily  to  mental  imaging  than  the  material- 
istic hypothesis. 

Try  imagination  then  upon  the  eternal  pre- 
existence  of  a  self -moved  Spirit.  Here  at  last 
is  a  picture  which  will  cohere,  which  also  has 
the  advantage  of  corresponding  to  our  own 
experience  at  the  crucial  point  :  we  are  self- 
moved  spirits,  we  are  creators  of  our  own  voli- 
tions, and  our  volitions  cause  the  release  of 
muscular  energy.  Other  people's  thoughts  we 
can  be  compelled  to  think  after  them  ;  but  our 
purposes  are  exclusively  our  own,  never  forced 
upon  us,  only  invited,  perhaps  urgently  invited 
with  a  thumbscrew  or  hot  coals,  but  no  more 
than  invited  by  the  wills  of  other  men.  As 
Goethe  said,  a  man's  purpose  is  all  that  is 
original  with  himself  ;  but  until  /le  forms  it,  it 
does  not  yet  exist.  The  only  imaginable  origin 
of  change  is  the  creative  volition  of  a  self-exist- 
ent, self-moved  Spirit.     To  the  imagination   a 


^e  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

self-moved  Spirit  needs  no  accounting  for,  but 
self-moved  matter  is  unaccountable.  The  uni- 
verse is  the  problem,  God  is  the  solution.  We 
cannot  distinctly  picture  any  other  possibility 
than  that  at  some  point  this  side  eternity  a 
Spirit  began  all  motion,  and  in  beginning  all 
motion  created  everything  to  which  motion  is 
essential.  This  solution  of  the  problem  is  the 
only  one  which  can  endure,  because  it  is  the 
only  one  which  can  be  imagined.  And  it  is 
precisely  of  this  solution  that  it  was  written, 
"  By  faith  [that  is,  by  imagination]  we  under- 
stand that  the  worlds  were  framed  by  the  word 
of  God." 

Some  one  will  surely  object  that  the  eternal 
preexistence  of  a  self-existent  Spirit  is  as  unim- 
aginable as  the  eternal  preexistence  of  finite 
changes  ;  and  further  that,  if  imaginability  is  to 
be  the  test  of  a  standing  or  falling  theory  con- 
cerning origins,  eternal  preexistence  is  as  much 
beyond  imagination  as  eternal  non-existence, 
simply  because  eternity  in  any  case  is  unimagin- 
able.    Such  a  challenge  must  be  met.     To  be 


PROBLEMS  AS    TO    THE  CREATOR  yy 

sure,  no  one  imagines  that  the  universe  created 
itself  out  of  nothing.  The  impossibihty  of 
imagining  this  impossible  beginning  would  be 
appealed  to  only  for  the  sake  of  discrediting 
some  other  appeal  to  imagination.  But  the 
difference  is  that  to  imagine  eternal  preexist- 
ence  of  something  is  impracticable,  while  to 
imagine  eternal  preexistence  of  nothingness  is 
impossible.  An  absolute  beginning  and  an 
absolute  non-beginning  are  not,  as  Sir  William 
Hamilton  persuaded  himself,  equally  inconceiv- 
able. Nothing  self-contradictory  can  be  found 
in  the  notion  of  eternal  preexistence  ;  but  the 
self-contradiction  is  almost  palpable  in  the 
notion  of  eternal  non-existence.  If  we  attempt 
to  picture  the  notion  of  the  eternal  preexist- 
ence of  something,  the  picture  cannot  be  fin- 
ished ;  but  a  picture  .  of  eternal  nothingness 
cannot  even  be  begun.  It  is  easy  to  trace 
existence  back  to  any  definite  period  however 
remote.  We  can  do  it  in  an  instant.  But  to 
unroll  the  panorama  of  eternity  past  would 
require  the  eternity  which  is  before  us.     It  is 


yS  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

impracticable,  though  not  in  itself  impossible. 
On  the  contrary,  when  we  have  in  an  instant 
gone  back  to  a  date  however  remote,  and 
attempt  to  imagine  at  that  point  an  absolute 
beginning  of  all  existence,  the  image  of  noth- 
ing converting  itself  into  something  is  utterly 
lunatic  and  preposterous.  No  sane  imagination 
will  fling  itself  into  the  bottomless  abyss  of  an 
empty  eternity. 

2.    Imagine  Order 

Now  the  universe  which  affords  the  ever 
shifting  spectacle  of  motion  exhibits  also,  con- 
trariwise, the  fixity  of  order  or  law.  Law  is  a 
permanent  characteristic  of  change  itself.  But 
whence  is  law  ?  How  did  chaos  come  to  be 
cosmos }  What  explanation  is  imaginable  ?  To 
some  minds  there  is  no  other  indication  of 
Supreme  Intelligence  so  plain  as  universal 
order.  I  admit  at  once  that  order  or  law  is  but 
another  name  for  definite  quality  in  things ; 
that  the  chemical  elements,  singly  and  in  com- 
bination,   from   time   to    time   reveal    amazing 


PROBLEMS  AS    TO    THE  CREATOR  79 

variety  of  qualities;  that  the  capacity  for  this 
exhibition  is  all  the  while  inherent  in  the  ele- 
ments, and  its  revelation  a  revelation  of  their 
laws.  If  we  succeed  by  and  by  in  reducing 
the  number  of  elements,  — a  number  until  to- 
day increasing,  —  if  we  find  them  all  reducible 
to  one  element,  then  the  variety  in  the  uni- 
verse becomes  all  the  more  amazing,  just  short 
of  incredible,  and  law  the  more  complex.  It 
would  indeed  ravish  the  soul  of  a  physicist  to 
discover  in  some  one  irreducible  element,  in 
some  primordial  set  of  absolutely  identical 
atoms,  the  unity  which  philosophy  has  been 
seeking  ever  since  philosophy  fairly  began. 
But  what  then  .?  The  greater  the  capabilities 
of  that  one  element,  the  greater  would  become 
the  burden  on  imagination.  An  infinite  variety 
in  things,  due  to  an  absolute  unity  in  the  ori- 
ginal thing,  would  astonish  materialism,  at  its 
last  word,  into  theism  ;  imagination  would  have 
merely  to  choose  between  saying  that  God 
made  that  wonderful  first  thing,  or  that  the 
FIRST   THING  was   itsclf    God.       So   almost  in- 


8o  SERVICE   TO    TRUTH. 

credible  a  first  thing,  with  its  boundless  ca- 
pacity for  qualities,  would  present  us  with  as 
many  laws ;  and  these  laws  of  the  several 
things  which  have  been  evolved  out  of  one 
thing  would  offer  us,  and  do  offer  us,  laws 
rising  from  numberlessness  into  unity,  a  great 
law,  either  known  or  yet  to  be  found,  a  law 
of  nature  over  all  natural  laws,  a  colonial 
empire  over  countless  tribes  in  strange  lands, 
each  tribe  accorded  its  native  customs,  and  all 
loyal  to  one  throne  in  the  imperial  land.  Im- 
agination would  be  challenged  to  give  an 
account  of  the  complexity,  the  simplicity,  and 
then  of  the  complexity  in  simplicity,  of  law. 
The  greater  the  difficulty  of  answering  that 
challenge,  the  more  insistent  and  imperious  the 
challenge.  The  more  amazing  the  spectacle  of 
complex  yet  coherent  order,  the  more  urgent 
the  demand  how  all  this  came  about ;  whence 
such  capacity  for  qualities,  which  is  capacity  for 
laws  ;  and  how  it  has  happened  that  the  world- 
stuff  did  not  fix  itself  in  a  few  unfruitful  forms. 
It  is  easy  to  imagine  that  it  might  have  been 


PROBLEMS   AS    TO    THE   CREATOR  8 1 

SO  fixed ;  and  no  exposition  of  the  process 
through  which  the  universe  has  become  both 
heterogeneous  and  orderly,  has  made  it  im- 
aginable that  chaos  unrolled  itself  into  cosmos 
in  the  complete  absence  of  intelligence.  How 
unroll  itself  aright  unless  it  started  aright  ? 
Huxley  himself  conceded  that,  if  we  go  back 
to  beginnings,  "  the  teleologist  has  us  at  his 
mercy."  If  then  imagination  is  allowed  a 
voice,  and  with  regard  to  the  unseen  it  must 
be  consulted,  Huxley  is  right,  of  course.  The 
bigger  and  more  uniform  the  original  nebula, 
the  more  nebulous  the  picture  of  origins  with- 
out coordinating  intelligence  ;  but  imagination 
delightedly  looks  on  while  Supreme  Intelligence 
sets  about  ordering  the  world  in  just  the  way 
that  has  been  followed.  Theism  satisfies  im- 
agination, atheism  confounds  it.  It  has  been 
so  ever  since  thought  on  these  matters  began, 
and  it  will  be  so  to  the  end. 

With  regard  to  law  there  is  another  fact 
which  staggers  imagination,  if  law  is  not  to  be 
referred  to  intelligence.     This  fact  is  that  the 


82  SERVICE    TO    TRUTH 

highest  laws  of  physics  are  not  reached  by 
measurements  of  real  things,  but  by  reason- 
ings about  imagined  things.  Not  induction  but 
deduction  is  the  process  which  attains  to  the 
widest  knowledge  of  the  universe.  Mathe- 
matical order  pervades  all  objects  in  space, 
and  mathematical  results  are  wholly  indepen- 
dent of  observation.  Attention  has  already 
been  called  to  the  fact  that  the  truths  of  math- 
ematics are  objects  of  imagination.  The  state 
of  facts  now  to  be  noticed  is :  first,  that  laws 
are  exponents  of  the  qualities  in  things ;  sec- 
ondly, that  mind  and  matter  have  not  a  single 
quality  in  common  ;  therefore,  thirdly,  their  laws 
are  not,  as  some  hold,  the  same ;  and  yet, 
fourthly,  there  is  complete  accord  between  their 
laws.  As  to  order  or  law  Hegel  is  right ;  the 
rational  is  the  real.  The  widest  law  known, 
the  all-inclusive  law  of  gravitation,  the  deepest 
secret  yet  torn  from  nature,  was  laid  hold  of 
and  dragged  into  light  by  mathematics.  What 
ground  can  be  imagined  for  this  correspond- 
ence }     If  matter  and  mind  were  one,  if  matter 


PROBLEMS  AS    TO    THE  CREATOR  83 

were  spiritual  or  mind  material,  that  is,  if  the 
properties  of  mind  and  matter,  instead  of  being 
mutually  exclusive,  were  all  either  of  the  class 
now  known  as  psychical,  or  of  the  other  class 
known  as  physical,  in  that  case  we  might 
still  wonder  at  so  much  harmony  in  so  great 
diversity  ;  but  we  would  no  longer  have  to 
stand  almost  aghast  at  so  great  a  strain  on  our 
credulity  as  that,  in  two  utterly  alien  spheres, 
with  no  fact  in  common  except  that  they  both 
exist  and  are  spheres  of  action,  there  is  corre- 
spondence as  rigid  as  though  both  spheres  were 
one.  How  can  imagination  accept  such  a  state 
of  facts  ?  Indisputable,  it  is  all  but  incredible, 
unless  it  may  be  ascribed  to  originating  Intelli- 
gence. A  theory  which  denies  Intelligence  is 
so  opaque  that  it  shuts  out  all  light  from  be- 
ginnings, and  imagination,  at  least,  cannot  see 

anything. 

3.    Imagine  Fitness 

Imagination  seeks  an  origin  not  alone  of 
motion  and  order,  but  also  of  the  fitness  to 
each  other    among   things.     An   argument    on 


84  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

this  basis  would  be  teleological,  always  the 
most  widely  appreciable,  but  of  late  the  most 
decried  argument.  I  decline  to  argue  the 
matter,  and  ask  only  what  imagination  does 
with  it. 

We  have  noted  that  as  things  change  they 
reveal  qualities  so  permanent  as  to  constitute 
order  in  the  world,  and  to  deserve  the  august 
name  of  nature's  laws.  But  these  qualities  are 
of  such  sort  that,  as  any  one  may  see,  objects 
to  which  they  belong  affect  each  other.  The 
universe  is  a  total  of  related  things.  And 
imagination  is  spectator  of  it  all.  It  penetrates 
the  depths  of  the  swirHng  nebulae,  watches 
aloof  the  influence  of  suns  on  planets,  sees  the 
molten  earth  cool  into  crystals,  its  hardened 
surface  worn  away  and  relaid  by  water,  and 
finally  takes  organisms  apart  with  knives  and 
reagents,  or  watches  their  performance  under 
microscopes,  until  it  knows  how  every  part  of 
a  structure  serves  the  whole.  But  when  on 
large  scale,  or  even  on  small  scale,  imagination 
witnesses  the  adjustments  found  everywhere,  it 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  CREATOR  85 

invariably  recognizes  purpose  in  them.  It  is 
all  the  same  whether  one's  religion  is  low  as 
animism  or  lofty  as  Christianity.  It  is  quite 
the  same  whether  the  imaginative  observer's 
beliefs  figure  as  the  credulity  of  superstition  or 
the  unfaith  of  agnosticism.  If  imagination  be 
permitted  to  look,  she  can  never  miss  seeing  a 
god  in  the  world.  And  though  fetishism  is 
mistaken  in  ascribing  every  odd  stick  and  stone 
to  a  demon,  and  superstition  may  play  the  fool 
in  fancying  that  God  reveals  some  malignant 
purpose  in  the  chance  that  thirteen  sit  at  table, 
or  salt  is  spilled  there,  that  one  unwittingly 
walks  under  a  ladder  or  incurs  the  expense  of 
breaking  a  looking  glass,  that  any  of  the  thou- 
sand "signs"  happen  which  skeptics  as  often 
as  others  torment  themselves  withal,  do  such 
misinterpretations  of  the  unusual  imply  that 
there  is  no  constant  meaning  in  nature  .-*  Is  it 
quite  out  of  question  that  the  world  had  a 
Maker,  that  he  made  things  for  a  purpose,  or 
that  he  can  hint  in  his  works  at  what  his 
purpose   is }      And   if   imagination    persists  in 


86  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

seeing  a  purpose  worthy  of  such  a  Being  as 
God,  must  this  persistence  be  pitied  as  a  poor 
guess,  or  denounced  as  unscientific  so  soon  as 
it  claims  to  be  insight,  and  is  touched  with 
reverence  ? 

If  imagination  finds  itself  curbed  by  the 
steady  rule  in  logic  that  we  must  allege  only  a 
sufficient  cause,  and  by  the  alleged  fact  that 
the  mechanism  of  nature  has  proved  its  sole 
sufficiency  by  doing  all  that  has  been  done, 
nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  imagination 
will  not  consent  to  this  application  of  the  rule. 
It  will  still  insist  with  antiquated  Paley  that 
the  mechanical  processes  of  a  watch  do  not 
supply  an  adequate  account  of  the  watch.  It 
will  go  on  with  him  to  contemplate  the  fact 
that,  if  a  watch  could  beget  watches,  the  process 
of  propagation  would  not  be  a  complete  account 
of  the  propagation.  And  when  the  critic  there- 
upon attacks  imagination  with  his  confident 
objection  that  watches  are  known  to  be  artificial 
while  worlds  are  known  to  be  natural,  even  in 
the  face  of  this  criticism,  which  seeks  to  close 


PROBLEMS  AS    TO    THE   CREATOR  8/ 

the  eye  of  imagination  like  a  hand  laid  firmly 
upon  it,  still  imagination  will  be  perspicacious 
enough  to  penetrate  with  her  X  ray  where 
common  light  is  lost.  She  will  say  that  it  is 
not  and  never  can  be  proved  that  the  world 
has  existed  from  eternity ;  she  will  see  that  it 
is  precisely  her  privilege  to  keep  in  view  the 
possible  significance  of  facts  which,  because 
they  seem  to  mean  a  great  deal,  probably  do 
mean  something,  or  at  least  suggest  the  exist- 
ence of  purpose  in  a  Maker. 

Or,  if  evolution  is  insisted  on,  and  the  story 
of  it  so  well  told  as  to  make  us  feel  certain  that 
all  objects  are  unfoldings  from  earlier  objects, 
in  that  case  imagination  will  be  all  aglow  at  the 
spectacle  of  a  world  forming  by  a  process  so 
facile  and  so  sure  of  its  end.  She  will  be 
amazed,  not  only  at  the  evolution  and  its  glories, 
but  at  the  purblindness  which  fancies  that  such 
a  process  shuts  the  door  against  Purpose. 
Imagination  will  think  she  sees  how,  if  there  is 
a  God  and  he  is  a  Creator,  to  create  by 
evolution    would   be    for    him    a   worthy   way. 


88  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH  , 

Imagination  is  vision,  clear  vision,  especially 
comprehensive  vision.  When  the  mind  com- 
prehensively and  clearly  views  first  the  cosmic 
activities,  then  the  cosmic  order,  then  the 
interdependence  of  all  objects  in  the  cosmos, 
an  interdependence  apart  from  which  there 
could  be  no  progress,  no  evolution,  nor  even 
the  continued  existence  of  any  organic  thing 
formed  this  side  of  formless  chaos,  and  when 
in  such  a  view  we  have  to  choose  between 
these  two  alternatives  :  —  all  this  was  intended  ; 
none  of  this  was  intended,  but  all  came  about 
of  itself  —  then  imagination  never  hesitates. 
An  unpurposed  universe  can  be  argued  for,  its 
possibility  approximately  made  out,  but  it  can 
never  be  imagined. 

Does  perhaps  reason  require  imagination  to 
efface  itself,  or  even  to  put  on  itself  restraint 
enough  to  hesitate.?  Decidedly  no.  Not  even 
grim  determination  to  accept  only  what  has 
been  proved  by  physical  appliances  is  able  to 
suppress  imagination  in  the  consecrated  priests 
of  science.      These,  no  more  than  others,  can 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  CREATOR  89 

hold  doctrines  in  permanence  the  image  of 
which  falls  apart  when  left  to  itself.  Nor  can 
they  wholly  repulse  the  charm  of  symmetrical 
and  persistent  imaginings.  If  the  scene  just 
now  before  the  mind  is  unacceptable,  another 
point  of  view  can  be  sought.  If  one  physicist 
rejects  "the  mechanical  view"  of  creation  —  by 
which  he  means  that  the  world  was  shaped  by 
its  Maker,  —  another  physicist  replies  that  the 
atoms  give  every  sign  of  being  *'  manufactured 
articles."  If  every  several  product  be  regarded 
as  wrought  by  nature,  nature  itself  is  to  the 
mind's  eye  the  more  evidently  dominated  by 
Idea.  Or  if  the  repugnance  to  special  creations 
and  divine  providence  cannot  be  surmounted, 
physical  philosophy  will  presently  be  found 
resolving  all  physical  energies  into  divine  voli- 
tions, and  agreeing  with  the  imagination  of 
simple  folk  who  lived  before  Newton  that  the 
spheres  are  rolled  through  space  by  the  hand 
of  the  Almighty.  Teleology,  if  not  in  the  little 
yet  in  the  large,  will  endure ;  and  of  this  we  are 
assured  not  only  by  the  fact  that  it  has  already 


90  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

lasted  so  long,  but  also  because  for  the  scientific 
and  the  simple  alike  it  is  the  only  interpretation 
of  the  world  which  imagination  can  frame. 
When  we  view  all  nature,  or  any  large  part  of 
it,  comprehensively,  it  has  meaning;  and  the 
modern  as  well  as  the  ancient  history  of  man's 
reflection  upon  nature  exhibits  an  irresistible 
proclivity  to  imagine  that  a  world  means  a 
Maker,  although  his  purpose  may  sometimes  be 
past  finding  out. 

It  would  be  as  easy  to  hide  the  majesty  and 
beauty  of  the  spectacle  as  to  hide  its  divinity. 
Analysis  does  not  detect  and  isolate  God's  part 
just  here  or  there  ;  but  neither  does  analysis 
pick  out  and  set  up  by  itself  the  grand  or  the 
beautiful.  Grandeur  is  not  often  an  attribute 
of  fragments ;  the  subtle  essence  of  beauty 
evaporates  in  analysis,  as  life  escapes  under  the 
scalpel's  too  curious  exploration.  But  beauty 
and  grandeur  are  not  the  less  real  that  the 
sense  of  them  cannot  be  imparted  by  anato- 
mizing ;  and  the  divineness  of  the  whole  is  not 
the  less  appreciable  because  it  cannot  be  found 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  CREATOR  91 

lurking  in  some  small,  secret  part.  Whatever 
the  beauty  or  the  divinity  of  the  details,  the 
total,  like  a  consummate  piece  of  human  archi- 
tecture, is  much  more  impressive  than  any  or 
all  its  parts  ;  and  imagination,  peering  minutely 
or  gazing  at  large,  has  never  missed  altogether 
either  the  aesthetic  or  the  religious  significance, 
which  are  but  two  sides  of  the  spiritual  signifi- 
cance, of  the  cosmos. 

4.   Imagine  Man 

In  the  problem  of  origins,  life  and  person- 
ality are  the  factors  which  illustrate  motion, 
order,  and  adaptations  at  their  highest.  As 
such  they  will  require  little  more  than  mention, 
and  that  for  the  sake  of  indicating  the  point  of 
view  from  which  they  are  here  regarded.  In 
organism  motion  is  not  a  mere  incident,  like 
the  felt  blowing  of  winds  and  the  visible 
flowing  of  waters.  Air  and  water  might  be  all 
that  they  are  without  perceptible  motion.  But 
motion  is  plainly  indispensable  to  organism 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  life.     Organic 


92  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

activity  is  also  the  most  intricate  and  inex- 
plicable of  activities.  Order  too  reaches  its 
culmination  in  living  bodies.  And  their  laws 
are  as  various  and  refined  as  their  qualities. 
Further,  law  in  living  objects  is  not  mere 
order ;  it  is  the  method  of  relations  within  an 
organism.  The  laws  of  life  are  laws  of  adapta- 
tions in  means  to  ends.  Nowhere  else  are  adap- 
tations so  manifold  and  necessary  as  in  living 
things.  Whatever  lack  of  precision  we  may 
discover  in  the  interaction  of  a  rational  being's 
faculties  and  organs,  reason  is  his  supreme 
faculty,  of  godlike  ability  to  preside  over  volun- 
tary functions  and  reduce  to  order  the  anarchy 
of  personal  existence.  If  imagination  is  im- 
pressed by  the  resources  of  this  planet,  which 
are  discovered  as  rapidly  as  civilization  needs 
them,  and  indeed  are  no  small  part  of  civiliza- 
tion itself,  much  more  is  it  the  discoverer  that 
impresses  imagination,  and  the  discoverer  as 
the  servant  of  that  larger  organism  which  we 
loosely  describe  as  human  society.  What 
imagination   beholds   is   the   steady   realization 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE   CREATOR  93 

of  the  Hebrew  faith  that  man  has  been  set  as 
lord  over  creation,  and  set  there  by  the  Maker 
of  both  it  and  him. 

It  is,  however,  when  man  contemplates  him- 
self not  as  part  of  the  scheme  of  things  but  in 
and  of  himself,  that  imagination  finds  no  other 
self-stultification  like  that  which  refuses  to  see 
in  himself  the  image  of  a  Maker.  The  opposite 
tendency  is  the  natural  tendency.  Instead  of 
finding  it  hard  to  imagine  himself  made  in  the 
image  of  God,  man  is  prone  to  make  a  God  for 
himself  in  his  own  image  and  after  his  own  like- 
ness. At  first  people  had  to  jeer  when  told  in 
the  name  of  science  that  they  were  descended 
from  some  monkey  race,  or  older  race  from 
which  monkeys  also  sprang,  and  the  "  London 
Punch  "  thought  it  a  fine  jest  to  picture  Mr. 
Darwin  before  a  mirror  which  showed  him  a 
gorilla  face  in  grotesque  reflection  of  his  own 
thoughtful  features.  But  by  and  by  a  convic- 
tion grew  that  the  assertion  by  the  learned 
of  such  an  origin  for  man  was  quite  too  confi- 
dent and  general  not  to  be  first  plausible,  and 


94  SERVICE    TO    TRUTH 

then  authoritative ;  so  that  now  persons  who 
know  a  Httle  and  would  like  to  know  more 
begin  to  relish  the  still  droll  conceit  of  saying 
"to  the  worm,  Thou  art  my  mother,"  if  not  yet 
"  to  corruption.  Thou  art  my  father."  But  the 
natural  imagination  of  mankind  has  not  been 
wholly  put  to  shame,  although  so  many  turned 
away  when  she  spoke  ;  and  at  last  it  is  quite 
clear  that,  while  she  must  recognize  our  kinship 
to  beasts,  yet  she  may  insist  that  descent  from 
beasts  is  a  divinely  guided  ascent  to  man.  To 
the  enlightened  imagination  of  so  good  a  Dar- 
winian as  Mr.  John  Fiske  materialism  is  an 
outrage  on  philosophy.  "  The  whole  creation 
has  been  travailing  together  in  order  to  bring 
forth  that  last  consummate  specimen  of  God's 
handiwork,  the  Human  Soul  "...  *'  The  Pla- 
tonic \iew  [of  it]  as  ...  an  effluence  from 
Godhood  ...  is  doubtless  the  view  most  con- 
sonant with  the  present  state  of  our  knowl- 
edge." ^  Some  day  it  may  be  proved  that  God 
had  no  hand  in  making  man  to  be  something 

1  "  Destiny  of  Man,"  pp.  42,  43,  32. 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  CREATOR  91; 

Other  than  a  beast ;  but  who  can  ever  make  it 
seem  that  he  had  not  ? 

5.     Imagine  God 

The  first  problem  concerning  a  Creator  was, 
Is  there  a  Creator  ?  The  second  is,  What  sort 
of  Being  is  he  ?  Every  attribute  in  him  is 
baffling  to  thought  when  run  out  to  infinity.  If 
we  try  to  think  back  and  back  to  eternity,  we 
are  deahng  with  the  most  bewildering  of  ideas  ; 
still  it  is  a  necessary  idea.  If  we  try  to  con- 
ceive infinite  extension  in  any  direction,  we  are 
perhaps  less  staggered,  though  not  less  de- 
feated ;  yet  it  is  a  necessary  conception.  There 
are,  however,  two  indispensable  and  at  the  same 
time  imaginable  views  of  God  :  his  personality 
and  his  perfection. 

When  we  seek  a  definite  conception  of  what 
kind  of  being  the  Creator  is  by  imagining  him 
a  person,  the  mind  at  once  finds  a  resting  place. 
This  is,  to  be  sure,  to  regard  the  Creator  an- 
thropomorphically,  to  make  him  an  infinitely 
exalted  Being  of  human  kind.     But  anthropo- 


96  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

morphism  is  in  some  part  truth.  Otherwise  no 
true  idea  of  such  a  Being  or  even  of  his  exist- 
ence is  possible.  A  spirit  cannot  be  imagined 
as  wanting  personaUty.  We  can  say  "  imper- 
sonal spirit,"  but  the  words  mean  ''unspiritual 
spirit;"  that  is,  they  are  without  meaning.  It 
is  easy  for  imagination  to  test  the  accuracy  of 
anthropomorphism  both  positively  and  nega- 
tively. It  has  but  to  form  images  distinct 
enough  and  comprehensive  enough  to  test  their 
coherence  and  their  applicability.  Positively, 
we  are  able  to  imagine  the  extension  of  a 
human  spirit's  powers.  At  some  point  that 
spirit  will  be  exactly  what  an  angel  is  supposed 
to  be  ;  then  what  an  archangel  is,  if  there  are 
archangels  ;  and,  in  case  the  extension  is  imag- 
ined to  reach  infinity,  there  will  be  no  difference 
between  this  infinitely  endowed  human  spirit 
and  God  himself.  Nothing  more  can  be  as- 
cribed to  God  than  we  thus  ascribe  to  this 
human  spirit,  nor  can  anything  be  denied  of 
this  human  spirit  which  is  not  to  be  denied  of 
God   also.      Negatively,    there   are    some    who 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  CREATOR  97 

cannot,  or  say  they  cannot,  imagine  the  finite 
become  infinite  ;  and  yet  they  beHeve  that  the 
eternal  Word  emptied  himself  of  his  limitless 
attributes,  and  so  by  incarnation  became  truly 
human.  But  if  the  process  of  limitation  is  pos- 
sible to  the  infinite,  that  of  extension  to  infinity 
must  be  possible  to  the  finite ;  and  in  either 
case  the  divine  and  the  human  would  be 
thought  of  as  specifically  one,  and  only  quanti- 
tatively different.  The  anthropomorphism  of 
the  early  Hebrews  is  unmistakable,  has  often 
been  flung  at  them  in  reproach,  but  remains 
as  helpful  as  ever  in  enabling  us  to  conceive 
God  personal  and  therefore  appreciable. 

Let  us,  if  we  must,  attempt  to  imagine  God  ^ 
impersonal,  lacking  consciousness,  but  endowed 
with  automatic  activity  like  spontaneous  nerve 
action.  Let  imagination  accord  to  him  instinct, 
but  deny  to  him  reason.  He  is  no  longer  God. 
He  is  no  longer  an  imaginable  explanation  of 
the  universe,  but  himself  a  problem  more  in- 
soluble than  the  universe.  Or  rather,  since  he 
is  thus  identified  with  the  universe,  he  is  that 


98  SERVICE    TO   TRUTH 

in  it  which  most  needs  explanation.  Instinct 
is  not  an  explanation,  but  needs  to  be  explained. 
We  simply  cannot  imagine  God  impersonal ; 
we  can  only  say  he  is  so.  Pantheism,  when 
long  persisted  in,  always  runs  out  into  poly- 
theism, as  in  India.  This  is  because  numerous 
personal  divinities  are  imaginable,  and  one  im- 
personal deity  unimaginable.  Pantheism  will 
often  be  revived,  but  will  never  abide  as  the 
faith  of  mankind ;  because  pantheism  defies 
imagination. 

Now  when  the  personality  of  God  is  clearly 
imaged,  perfection  no  longer  figures  to  our  im- 
agination as  a  phase  of  infinitude,  and  thus  of 
incomprehensibility,  but  as  exceedingly  definite, 
that  is,  as  delimitation  by  virtue  of  excluding 
imperfections.  Thus,  if  we  form  a  conception 
of  divine  holiness,  it  is  not  to  be  pictured  as 
analogous  to  boundless  space,  but  as  moral 
energy  tintoiiched  by  evil.  If  we  would  con- 
template God's  infinite  love,  we  imagine  it  as  a 
desire  for  nothing  else  except  our  well  being. 
Infinite  justice  is  a  not  inaccurate  rendering  of 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO    THE   CREATOR  99 

what  is  due  to  anyone.  Even  infiniteness  of 
knowledge  is  readily  imaginable  as  knowledge 
which  omits  nothing,  and  wisdom  as  knowledge 
which  makes  no  mistakes  about  what  to  do.  It 
has  already  been  shown  that  the  eternity  and 
immensity  of  God  are  unimaginable  only  be- 
cause to  finish  an  image  of  them  is  imprac- 
ticable, not  intrinsically  impossible.  All  these 
definitions  are  but  denials  of  the  finite,  and 
hence  are  all  readily  imagined.  It  cannot  be 
objected  that  this  easy  negative  way  of  viewing 
the  divine  perfections  is  illegitimate ;  for  the 
old  maxim  of  logic  stands,  "  the  knowledge  of 
opposites  is  one;  "  so  that  if  we  formed  a  com- 
plete view  of  any  infinite  excellency,  the  con- 
verse conception  would  be  present  always,  and 
would  be  precisely  what  has  just  now  been 
alleged. 

There  is,  however,  a  more  positive  method  of 
conception,  although  none  could  be  more  accu- 
rate. To  conceive  divine  perfections  positively 
is  to  conceive  the  excellencies  of  God  as  ex- 
tending over  reaches  apprehensible  by  us,  and 


100  SERVICE   TO    TRUTH 

then  as  carrying  the  same  character  on  to  in- 
finitude. We  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that, 
if  we  knew  any  divine  excellence  in  its  entirety, 
that  which  we  do  not  now  know  about  it  would 
differ  in  any  way  from  that  which  we  now  know. 
Power,  wisdom,  holiness,  justice  and  benevolence 
are  indisputably  what  we  conceive  them  to  be, 
whether  limited  or  unlimited.  In  a  word,  what- 
ever logical  embarrassment  may  be  met  in  at- 
tempting to  infer  what  the  infinite  excellencies 
of  God  will  lead  him  to  do,  we  have  an  un- 
questionably correct  notion  of  what  these  at- 
tributes severally  are,  and  may  properly  imagine 
God  as  all-perfect,  that  is,  as  a  Person  infinite 
only  in  all  that  good  is. 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  RULER  lOI 


IV 

PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  RULER 

I.    Imagination    Makes    Light   of    an    Old 
Problem 

Of  problems  concerning  the  Ruler  of  the 
universe  we  need  occupy  ourselves  with  two 
only.  The  first  of  these  has  diligently  sought 
a  solution  during  at  least  a  millennium  and  a 
half.  It  is  the  problem  of  God's  sovereignty 
and  man's  freedom.  I  do  not  say  that  the 
religious  imagination  solves  this  problem,  but 
that  to  religious  imagination  no  such  problem 
can  exist.  When  ratiocination  takes  the  matter 
in  hand  it  finds  trouble  enough.  Always  the 
attempt  at  rational  exposition  tends  to  exalt 
either  sovereignty  or  freedom  at  the  cost  of  the 
other,  or  else  insists  on  both,  only  to  start  the 
problem  whether  God  is  good  and  wise.  But 
imagination  finds  no  difficulty  of  any  sort.     Its 


102  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

picture  must  necessarily  include  all  essentials, 
and  it  insists  on  these  categorically  without 
allowing  one  of  them  to  be  compromised  in  the 
smallest  degree  by  puzzles  which  vex  the  under- 
standing. On  what  then  does  imagination  fix 
her  gaze  ? 

Imagination  cannot  allow  any  other  state  of 
facts  except  that  God  is  sovereign  and  man  is 
free.  Try  to  imagine  a  man  who  has  not  at 
least  so  much  freedom  as  this,  that  he  can  form 
preferences  and  purposes  which  are  character- 
istically his  own.  You,  oh,  clear-seeing  reader, 
do  not  imagine  that  such  a  being  would  be 
a  man.  Well  then,  imagine  God  not  to  be 
free.  Imagine  him  without  at  least  this 
minimum  of  freedom,  that  he  too  can  form 
preferences  and  purposes  which  are  character- 
istic of  himself.  Such  a  being,  if  imagined, 
would  not  be  imagined  to  be  God.  At  once, 
then,  imagination  has  swept  out  of  her  view 
all  the  moral  difficulties  of  the  problem.  As 
she  sees  things,  man  must  be  free,  and  so  must 
God.     The  freedom  of   man  must  at    least  be 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO    THE  RULER  1 03 

freedom  to  choose  according  to  what  he  is ; 
and  God  cannot  be  free  to  choose  otherwise 
than  according  to  what  he  is.  All  is  well. 
Nothing  else  so  well  as  this  is  imaginable. 
Nothing  else  would  be  well  at  all.  An  All- 
perfect  Ruler,  free  to  form  and  to  follow, 
and  free  only  to  form  and  to  follow,  designs 
characteristic  of  his  perfection,  is  the  only 
imaginable  security  for  the  well  being  of 
creatures.  Imagine  man  void  of  freedom,  and 
you  imagine  there  is  no  man.  Imagine  man 
alone  free,  his  will  the  sole  arbiter  ;  imagine 
God  not  free,  or  otherwise  free  than  free  to 
be  good,  or  less  than  free  to  be  sovereignly 
good,  and  you  imagine  the  unimaginable  ; 
you  imagine  that  divine  perfection  is  divine 
imperfection ;  you  imagine  that  the  universe 
is  hell. 

In  a  philosophical  exploration  of  this  theme 
the  moral  difficulty,  as  distinguished  from  the 
metaphysical,  is  that  God's  free  sovereignty 
must  somehow  be  responsible  for  man's  free 
wickedness,  or    can   be    clear   of    such  respon- 


104  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

sibility  only  by  abridging  man's  freedom  and 
forcing  man  to  do  right  ;  —  which  is  to  ex- 
change the  moral  for  the  metaphysical  diffi- 
culty, one  to  be  noticed  anon.  If  now 
imagination  undertakes  to  philosophize,  if  she 
invents  an  origin  for  evil,  she  will  quickly 
discover  incongruities  that  spoil  her  picture. 
Imagination  may,  however,  forego  philosophiz- 
ing on  this  problem  as  one  too  big  for  her,  as 
possibly  too  vast  for  any  being  except  the  All- 
knowing.  But  she  will  be  able  distinctly  and 
unevasively  to  imagine  that  He  knows  an  an- 
swer. Then  the  infinite  wisdom  of  God  has 
swallowed  up  the  last  alleged  unimaginability. 
To  imagination  there  is  no  moral  problem  at  all. 
She  sees  all  the  elements  in  the  problem  as  so 
many  blazing  suns.  She  sees  God  free,  good 
and  wise ;  she  sees  man  free,  bad  and  foolish. 
However  the  badness  came  about,  the  freedom 
of  man  in  becoming  and  in  remaining  bad  is 
certain  to  imagination  in  this  essential  sense 
of  freedom,  that  man  has  always  consciously 
had   his    own    way.     Viewing    freedom    as   the 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  RULER  I05 

distinguishing  mark  of  rational  beings,  a  mark 
common  to  God  and  man,  the  front  and  face 
side  of  the  fact  that  both  are  persons,  imag- 
ination can  then  detect  no  remainder  of  the 
moral  problem.  Man's  way  being  his  own  way, 
he  is  morally  responsible  for  it,  however  he 
came  to  choose  it  ;  and  God's  wisdom  being 
perfect  wisdom,  he  can  imaginably  have  a 
sufficient  reason  for  doing  all  that  he  has  done, 
even  although  his  doings  include  the  creation 
of  a  race  which  might  and  even  inevitably 
would  go  astray.  The  assurance  which  to 
imagination  looms  large  and  cannot  be  put 
down  is  that  an  All-perfect  Person  is  the  free 
and  supreme  Ruler  over  all. 

But  imagination  as  readily  disposes  of  the 
metaphysical  stumbling  block.  It  is  but  a 
pebble  in  her  path.  We  may  see  her  step  over 
it,  quite  unconscious  of  its  existence,  although 
it  completely  blocks  the  way  for  formal  logic. 
Once  more,  then,  imagine  a  man  not  free,  at  least 
not  so  far  free  as  this,  that  he  can  form  prefer- 
ences ;   and  you  have  attempted  an  incoherent 


I06  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

fancy,  you  have  not  imagined  a  man.  Imagin- 
ing man  therefore  as  free,  and  admitting  that 
he  can  be  only  thus  imagined,  try  to  imagine 
God  as  designing  to  make  man,  and  not  in- 
cluding man's  freedom  in  his  design.  Again 
you  are  attempting  a  self-contradiction.  The 
image  falls  apart ;  it  cannot  be  held  together 
by  force.  It  melts  through  any  grasp,  if  it  does 
not  prove  an  explosive  mixture  outright,  as  has 
often  happened  to  the  great  pain  and  damage 
of  those  who  tamper  with  these  incompati- 
bles.  If  we  but  avoid  imagining  what  does  not 
exist,  and  insist  on  a  clear  and  comprehensive 
mental  image  of  what  does  exist,  we  do  not 
imagine  God  trying  either  to  clear  man  of 
moral  responsibility  or  to  save  his  own  sov- 
ereignty by  limiting  man's  freedom ;  but  we 
see  him,  on  the  contrary,  sovereignly  determin- 
ing that  man  shall  be  free.  It  may  help  us  if 
we  also  perceive  that,  in  so  determining,  God 
sovereignly  chose  to  limit  the  exercise  of  his 
own  sovereignty  after  man  should  appear  on 
earth.      He    might    do  this  if  he   would  ;    and 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO  THE  RULER  lO/ 

apparently  he  has  so  done.  Not,  however,  that 
this  is  anything  else  than  a  sovereign  act  still. 
The  self-limitation  is  part  of  his  plan. 

What  we  must  and  alone  can  imagine,  as  to 
the  metaphysical  difficulty  in  holding  at  once 
to  the  supreme  will  of  God  and  the  free  will  of 
man,  is  just  this :  whatever  God  designs  to 
achieve  through  mauy  he  designs  to  achieve 
through  mejif  that  is,  through  free  persons. 
To  rational  imagination  God  is  as  sovereign 
as  though  man  were  a  stone,  and  man  is  as 
free  as  though  there  were  no  God.  If  one  is 
tempted  to  say  that  man  is  as  free  as  though 
God  were  a  stone,  he  should  call  to  mind  the 
stony  Buddha,  with  feet  curled  under  him, 
hands  spread  palm  downward  upon  his  knees, 
eyes  closed  in  a  dreamless  and  eternal  sleep ; 
and  he  should  reflect  well  that  Buddhism  is  the 
most  relentless  system  of  moral  and  mechani- 
cal necessitarianism.  Indeed,  we  cannot  find 
freedom  provided  for  man  in  atheism  either. 
The  source  and  guarantee  of  our  freedom  is 
that  our  Maker  is  free,  has  made  us  in  his  own 


I08  SERVICE    TO    TRUTH 

image,  and  cannot  imaginably  will  that  we 
should  be  slaves.  The  imagination  accepts  all 
that  there  is  in  the  problem,  —  save  only  God's 
undiscoverable  motive  for  letting  evil  enter  the 
world,  a  motive  which  God's  infinitude  forbids 
imagination  to  look  for,  yet  provides  for,  —  and 
so  imagination  finds  no  problem  at  all.  To 
wide-seeing  religious  imagination  the  sole  reality 
and  the  sole  possibility  is  that  God  has  abso- 
lutely decreed  a  conditional  universe. 

2.    Imagination    Lights    On    a    Distinction 
In  a  Newer  Problem 

Miracles  furnish  another  problem  of  divine 
rulership  as  to  which  imagination  can  be  of  ser- 
vice. Miracles  have  been  discredited  and  good 
Christians  distressed  through  unwitting  confusion 
of  miracles  with  magic.  These  differ  entirely 
as  regards  the  human  intermediary,  the  super- 
human doer  and  the  work  done.  Magic  claimed 
to  be  both  science  and  art.  As  science  it  knew 
of  secret  resources  in  nature,  and  as  art  it  had 
skill  to  use  these.     This  was   ''white  magic." 


PROBLEMS  AS    TO   THE  RULER  109 

But  the  magician  might  also  be  able  to  compel 
obedience  from  superhuman  beings  ;  and  if  this 
was  through  a  compact  with  evil  spirits,  his  art 
was  "  black  magic."  Had  Jesus  cast  out  demons 
through  Beelzebub  their  prince,  he  would  not 
have  been  a  miracle- worker  but  a  sorcerer,  an 
adept  in  black  magic.  He  needed  to  vindicate 
himself  from  such  a  charge.  We  find,  then,  three 
distinguishing  characteristics  in  magic  :  first,  the 
human  practitioner  makes  out  by  use  of  mystic 
forms  of  words,  by  drawing  geometrical  figures, 
by  burning  aromatics,  or  even  through  mechani- 
cal contrivances,  actually  to  compel  and  control 
occult  forces,  natural  or  supernatural  ;  secondly, 
the  superhuman  agent  may  be  a  minor  divinity, 
a  false  god,  but  is  always  less  than  Deity,  for 
magic  never  pretended  to  power  over  the  Most 
High  ;  thirdly,  the  result  is  characteristic  of  the 
actors.  If  these  are  good  men,  good  genii,  their 
work  is  good,  in  an  earthly  way,  but  it  is  without 
moral  or  spiritual  significance  beyond  an  oc- 
casional trial  of  strength  with  evil  magicians  and 
their  familiars. 


no  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

How  then  will  imagination  deal  with  the  pre- 
tense of  magic  ?  It  cannot  be  denied  that  in 
past  times  imagination  accepted  the  magician. 
That  a  few  persons  are  able  to  control  natural 
agencies  of  which  the  many  have  no  knowledge 
seemed  likely  enough  then,  and  to-day  is  as 
certain  as  it  ever  seemed.  But  in  old  times  the 
mystery  with  which  the  adept  in  applied  science 
chose  to  veil  his  doings,  operated,  as  was  some- 
times intended,  to  persuade  the  vulgar  that  he 
was  in  league  with  superhuman  powers  ;  where- 
as, the  spirit  of  modern  science  tolerates  no  airs 
of  mystery,  turns  as  much  light  as  possible  on 
dark  places,  explains  to  all  the  world  whatever 
can  be  explained,  and  almost  pledges  itself  to  find 
an  explanation  for  the  inexplicable.  And  so  it 
has  come  about  that  in  our  day  magic  is  imagin- 
able only  to  the  ignorant ;  and  if  miracles  were 
really  magic,  they  would  be  just  as  incredible. 
But  miracles  are  contrasted  with  magic  at  every 
point. 

Miracles  were  an  affair  neither  of  science  nor 
of  art.     No  one  pretended  to  understand  how 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  RULER  III 

miracles  were  done,  nor  to  compel  their  pro- 
duction. If  they  came,  they  came  only  as  gifts 
from  their  real  worker.  That  worker  was  al- 
ways God,  either  directly  or  by  an  angel  sent  for 
the  purpose.  Miracles  were  characteristic  of 
their  source.  If  they  conferred  a  worldly  bene- 
fit it  was  not  without  moral  relations  or  aims. 
It  was  to  aid  somehow  in  setting  up  the  kingdom 
of  God  among  men,  perhaps  by  showing  love  for 
his  children  or  enmity  to  his  foes,  perhaps  by  re- 
forming the  faith  and  life  of  his  people  or  at 
least  by  certifying  a  messenger.  A  miracle, 
then,  if  it  took  place,  was  an  extraordinary  event 
in  the  physical  sphere,  and  purported  to  be 
wrought  by  God.  It  must  be  cognizable  by  the 
senses,  and  its  source  must  be  unequivocally  di- 
vine. If  an  event  fall  short  of  either  requirement, 
it  may  perhaps  be  supernatural,  may  be  magical, 
but  should  not  be  called  a  miracle,  and  cannot 
do  a  miracle's  office. 

Summarily,  magic  is  by  man's  art  ;  miracle  is 
a  gift  to  men.  Magic  is  by  superhuman  agents 
subject  to  the  magician's  will ;  miracle  is  by  God 


112  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

alone,  and  at  his  will  alone.  Magic  is  wrought 
through  spells  ;  miracle  is  granted  to  prayer. 
Magic  is  of  earthly  meaning ;  miracle  is  of 
spiritual  meaning.  Whether  miracles  are  im- 
aginable will  be  considered  a  little  further  on. 
It  will  be  well  to  make  another  distinction 
clear  before  asking  just  what  burden  miracles 
would  throw  upon  imagination. 

3.    Faith  is  not  Hope 

In  overlooking  this  distinction  another  also 
is  often  overlooked,  and  imagination  is  made  a 
source  of  perplexity  and  distress.  Good  Chris- 
tian people  sometimes  say  that  if  they  had  faith 
enough  they  too  could  work  miracles,  at  least 
could  secure  some  supernatural  answer  to 
prayer  for  physical  benefits.  They  ask  for 
sound  health,  and  then  blame  themselves  for 
the  continued  ill  health  of  themselves  or  their 
dear  friends.  They  think  it  is  because  they 
"  have  not  had  faith  to  believe "  that  healing 
would  surely  be  granted  to  their  prayers. 
Here  are  two  unfortunate  mistakes.     The  first 


PROBLEMS  AS    TO    THE  RULER  II3 

is  that  they  do  not  distinguish  faith  from  hope. 
Faith  is  trust,  hope  is  expectation.  Faith  may 
not  only  be  unaccompanied  by  hope,  but  is 
sometimes  strongest  when  hope  is  absent.  One 
may  exercise  the  largest  trust  Godward  when 
he  has  the  smallest  expectation  of  that  which 
he  asks  from  God.  It  requires  a  peculiarly 
deep  trust  to  leave  our  most  eager  desires  at 
the  disposal  of  any  person  to  whose  help  we 
appeal.  But  this  is  precisely  the  faith  which 
Jesus  displayed  at  the  crisis  in  Gethsemane. 
He  asked  that  the  cup  might  pass  from  him, 
but  did  not  in  the  least  look  for  it  to  pass. 
He  had  eagerly  awaited  that  hour.  He  knew 
that  he  must  drain  the  cup,  although  it  cost 
him  an  agony  to  think  of  doing  it.  And  he 
knew  that  his  Father  heard  him,  but  he  also 
knew  that  he  m.ust  finish  the  work  which  the 
Father  had  sent  him  to  do.  Did  any  one  ever 
fancy  that  our  Lord's  faith  was  weak  because 
his  prayer  was  hopeless  .?  And  did  he  ever  show 
trust  so  complete  as  when  he  said,  "Neverthe- 
less, not  my  will  but  thine  be  done  "  ? 


114  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

I  have  not  overlooked  that  hope  naturally 
waits  on  faith,  so  naturally  that  the  apostle  of 
faith  could  for  once  say,  ''  By  hope  were  we 
saved  "  ;  and  our  Lord  also,  in  an  instance  to 
be  presently  referred  to  again,  declared  as  re- 
ported by  Mark,  ''  Whoever  says  to  this  moun- 
tain, Be  thou  taken  up  and  cast  into  the  sea ; 
and  does  not  doubt  in  his  heart,  but  believes 
that  what  he  says  comes  to  pass ;  he  shall 
have  it."  And  yet  faith,  not  hope,  is  the  New 
Testament's  condition  of  being  saved,  —  what- 
ever it  is  to  be  saved.  And  as  to  miracles, 
although,  while  the  period  for  them  lasted,  to 
ask  for  them  in  faith  was  all  one  with  asking 
for  them  in  hope,  after  this  period  miracles 
could  be  hoped  for  only  as  a  result  of  imagining 
that  there  is  need  for  them  in  one's  own  day. 
But  such  an  im_agination  must  be  formed,  if  at 
all,  in  view  of  all  the  facts. 

When  therefore  one  who  really  trusts  in  God 
accuses  himself  of  praying  amiss  because  he 
seems  to  pray  fruitlessly,  most  likely  his  error 
does  not  end  with  confounding  faith  and  hope, 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  RULER  1 1  5 

but  even  extends  to  regarding  the  answer  to 
prayer  as  a  sort  of  magic,  and  prayer  itself  as 
a  species  of  incantation.  Just  such  was  the 
mistake  of  the  disciples  who  besought  the  Lord 
to  increase  their  faith ;  and  just  the  necessary 
corrective  was  administered  when  Jesus  replied 
that,  if  they  had  faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard 
seed,  they  might  say  to  this  sycamore  tree,  or 
as  he  had  it  on  another  occasion,  to  this  moun- 
tain. Be  plucked  up  and  removed,  and  it  would 
be  done.  What  greater  disproportion  than  be- 
tween mustard  seed  and  mountain .?  What 
greater  than  between  faith  and  a  miracle } 
The  receptivity  of  faith  is  immense,  its  effi- 
ciency here  is  nothing.  When  it  comes  to  con- 
straining superior  beings,  miracle  and  magic  are 
utterly  unlike.  Let  not  good  Christians  tor- 
ment themselves  about  the  inefficiency  of  their 
prayers,  if  indeed  they  trust  in  God ;  and  let 
not  skeptics  disparage  miracles  as  though  they 
were  by  art  and  man's  device.  They  are  works 
of  God,  recognizably  his,  if  they  occur  at  all, 
and  are  wrought  for  ends  justified  to  his  wis- 


Il6  SERVICE   TO    TRUTH 

dom.  One  who  would  work  wonders  to  please 
a  Herod  would  be  a  conjurer,  not  the  Christ, 
and  his  work  one  of  magic,  not  a  miracle.  To 
imagine  otherwise  is  to  attempt  a  wholly  in- 
coherent picture  which  a  sufficiently  vivid  im- 
agination would  reject. 

4.  Imagination's  Way  with  Miracles  and 
Magic 
Thus,  understood  miracles  should  not  be 
called  impossible  nor  incredible.  To  religious 
imagination  they  present  no  difficulty  whatever. 
If  it  is  possible  to  imagine  a  personal  God,  it  is 
just  as  possible  to  imagine  that  he  can  work 
miracles.  When  we  look  about  an  ordinary 
room  we  see  no  object  wrought  by  nature,  ex- 
cept perhaps  a  man's  face  and  hands,  a  pot  of 
flowers,  with  a  glimpse  of  tree  or  patch  of  sky 
out  of  doors.  Everything  else  in  sight  is  arti- 
ficial. Our  food  is  artificial,  at  least  brought 
by  art  from  afar.  We  do  not  dwell  where 
Kingsley  humorously  fancied  that  some  did,  in 
the  land  of  the  Do-as-you-likes,  where  they  lie 


PROBLEMS  AS    TO    THE   RULER  11/ 

under  the  flapdoodle  trees,  and  let  the  ripe 
flapdoodle  fall  into  their  mouths.  Man  does  no 
end  of  things  which  nature  cannot  do  ;  cannot 
God  do  as  much  ?  A  miracle  is  a  divine  arti- 
fice;  can  the  artifice  of  man  compass  nearly 
everything  that  concerns  us,  but  God  achieve 
nothing  artificial  for  either  us  or  himself  ? 
Surely,  an  empty  question  to  the  imagination 
which  begins  with  imagining  that  there  is  a 
personal  God. 

Whether  miracles  ever  took  place  is  a  ques- 
tion of  fact ;  and  yet,  if  this  question  of  fact  is 
made  a  question  of  imagination,  we  try  in  vain 
to  picture  the  beginning  of  life,  sentience,  or 
rationality,  without  an  intervention  of  God. 
Chemistry  is  producing  by  synthesis  many  a 
substance  hitherto  known  as  organic  because  in 
nature  it  is  a  product  of  life.  Imagine,  then, 
the  artificial  production  of  every  compound  in 
living  bodies  ;  and  imagine  these  compounds 
united  as  life  unites  them ;  that  is,  imagine 
with  scientific  seriousness  the  success,  in  some 
rudimentary    form,    of    the    experiment    which 


Il8  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

Mrs.  Shelley's  weird  fancy  ascribed  in  elaborate 
form  to  Frankenstein  ;  and  when  the  artificial 
organism  is  ready  for  life,  it  is  ready  also  to 
decay.  It  is  in  precisely  the  condition  of  or- 
ganisms from  which  life  has  departed.  Is  it 
any  easier  for  a  scientific  mind  to  imagine  life 
coming  into  a  compound  artificially  prepared  by 
synthesis,  than  coming  back  to  a  naturally  pre- 
pared organic  compound  after  life  has  once  left 
it .?  And  what  difference  if  the  organic  com- 
pound were  not  artificial,  but  a  natural  happen- 
ing in  advance  of  life .?  Certainly,  if  contra- 
vention of  all  experience  lays  a  burden  on 
imagination,  just  such  a  burden  is  laid  by  those 
who  ask  us  to  believe  in  spontaneous  origina- 
tion of  life.  And  to  this  bulky  burden  must  be 
added  a  detail,  the  happening  of  that  organic 
compound.  Nature  never  produces  any  such 
except  through  the  process  called  life  ;  and  then 
only  by  the  action  of  chlorophyl,  the  singular 
substance  which  makes  the  leaves  green,  the 
one  substance  which  can  manufacture  organic 
matter  out  of  inorganic.     In  face  of  such  diffi- 


PROBLEMS  AS    TO   THE  RULER  1 19 

culties,  which  do  not  leave  out  of  account  any- 
thing that  God  is  now  doing  in  nature,  —  in  face 
of  such  difficulties  it  is  fair  to  say  that  neither 
nature  nor  nature's  God  gives  any  sign  of  now 
doing  anything  which  makes  the  origination  of 
life  long  ago  imaginable,  unless  God  then  did 
something  more  than  he  is  doing  all  the  while. 
Some  special  act  of  God  is  immeasurably  easier 
to  imagine  than  the  entire  absence  of  any  spe- 
cial act  of  God  throughout  the  entire  history  of 
the  universe  ;  but  such  a  special  act  would  be 
a  miracle. 

In  this  day  both  of  queer  ''psychic  phe- 
nomena ' '  and  of  physical  science  we  have  rare 
opportunity  to  test  the  relative  imaginability  of 
miracle  and  of  occurrences  essentially  magical, 
if  they  take  place  at  all.  Now,  it  should  not 
be  denied  that  there  are  startling  facts  which 
fall  into  certain  general  classes ;  and  these 
facts  are  so  indisputable  as  to  make  it  likely 
that  there  are  other  not  yet  verified  facts  of 
the  same  classes.  There  is  no  human  being 
who  does  not  experience  when  he  is  drowsy  the 


120  SERVICE   TO    TRUTH 

power  of  matter  over  mind ;  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  useful  or  hurtful  influence  of  mind 
upon  body  is  a  subject  of  grave  concern  to  phy- 
sicians, and  constitutes  the  type  of  a  class  of 
facts  wide  enough,  in  the  opinion  of  some  cau- 
tious thinkers,  to  embrace  all  the  singular 
phenomena  called  psychic.  These  alleged  phe- 
nomena are  too  notorious  to  need  illustration. 
A  third  approximately  settled  fact  is  that  mind 
is  susceptible  to  impressions  from  another  mind 
at  a  distance  without  the  use  of  any  known  or 
perhaps  even  imaginable  physical  means  of  com- 
munication. Apparently  a  large  majority  of 
persons  have  had  frequent  experience  of  telep- 
athy in  one  of  its  simpler  forms  :  one  obeys  a 
sudden  impulse  to  turn  his  head  and  eyes, 
always  to  find  some  one  intently  gazing  at  him. 
The  impulse  in  all  cases  is  so  sudden  and  inex- 
plicable, so  utterly  unconnected  with  any  physi- 
cal signal  that  one  is  being  watched,  or  with 
any  association  of  ideas  which  could  induce  him 
to  turn  abruptly,  that  it  would  seem  sheer 
credulity   to  refer  the   experience  to  anything 


PROBLEM";  AS   TO   THE  RULER  121 

short  of  telepathy.  For  those  who  have  had 
such  an  experience  innumerable  times,  and  have 
studied  it  as  carefully  as  its  singularity  and 
suddenness  permit,  it  is  easy  to  imagine  that 
telepathy  accounts  for  all,  or  nearly  all,  the 
strange  things  in  heaven  and  earth  that  have 
no  other  place  in  their  philosophy. 

Of  the  few  things,  if  any,  which  cannot  be 
thus  accounted  for,  the  least  astounding,  and 
perhaps  best  attested,  is  that  a  "medium" 
sometimes  reveals  matters  not  known  to  anyone 
present,  fully  known  only  to  the  dead,  and  after- 
ward proved  to  be  matters  of  fact.  Now  it  is 
easily  imaginable  that  the  spirits  of  our  beloved 
dead  consciously  exist,  and  that  they  may  like 
to  send  back  some  word  to  us.  It  is  by  no 
means  incredible  that  some  who  walk  the  earth 
are  more  facile  media  of  communicating  with 
the  world  of  spirits  than  are  the  bereaved  them- 
selves. But  when  the  alleged  "  mediums  "  make 
a  trade  of  their  gift,  exhibit  it  for  shekels  to  a 
gaping  public,  exercise  it  only  with  curtains 
drawn,  gas  turned  low,  or  such  other  accessories 


122  SERVICE   TO    TRUTH 

as  jugglers  need,  especially  when  they  make  the 
departed  spirits  talk  twaddle  wearisome  to  hear, 
the  like  of  which  these  never  inflicted  while 
they  had  voice  or  pen  of  their  own,  then  it  is 
not  easy  to  imagine  that  the  "phenomena"  are 
more  than  cruel  deceptions.  Or,  if  it  must  be 
suspected  that  the  mediums  are  "  possessed  " 
by  spirits  not  their  own,  these  would  seem  to  be 
foolish  and  wicked  spirits,  and  the  mediums 
meddlers  with  the  dark  and  forbidden  art  of 
necromancy,  which  pretended  to  disturb  the 
dead.  This  modern  magic,  like  the  ancient,  has 
a  heavy  task  if  it  is  to  overcome  the  repugnance 
at  once  intellectual,  moral  and  aesthetic  aroused 
by  performances  that  benumb  imagination  with 
horror,  or  make  it  sick  with  disgust. 

Now,  contrast  these  pretensions  with  the 
miracles  which  the  Bible  records,  in  particular 
with  those  of  the  New  Testament,  for  the  New 
Testament  begins  the  present  age  and  belongs 
to  it.  They  were  not  done  in  a  corner,  if  done 
at  all.  They  were  wrought  in  the  light  of  the 
sun.     They    were    identifiably    God's    gifts    to 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  RULER  1 23 

men,  gifts  worthy  of  their  Source,  suitable  at- 
tendants on  Heaven's  costliest  gift,  the  all-inclu- 
sive miracle,  Christ  himself.  The  right-minded 
would  prefer  to  believe  in  them,  and  in  him.  In 
other  words,  it  is  imaginable  that  there  is  a  per- 
sonal God ;  that  he  can  work  miracles  ;  that  he 
has  wrought  them  ;  that  they  are  an  integral 
part  of  the  most  alluring  vision  of  his  nature 
ever  afforded  to  mankind.  To  which  it  may  be 
added  that  this  vision  is  not  only  consonant 
with  the  highest  religious  thought,  but  is 
regarded  by  careful  students  of  religion  as  itself 
the  source  of  that  thought,  and  thus  of  the 
purest  and  most  ennobling  influences  which  have 
ever  blessed  our  race.  The  imaginability  of 
miracles,  thus  understood,  is  so  complete,  that 
for  those  who  think  according  to  Christ,  to  avoid 
imagining  them  has  ever  required  greater  adroit- 
ness than  plain  Christian  folk  can  command. 

But  we  are  thus  brought  face  to  face  with 
another  class  of  problems. 


124  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 


V 

PROBLEMS  AS  TO   THE  FATHER 
I.    Will  He  Let  His  Children  Perish? 

Any  other  test  of  the  divine  fatherhood  than 
its  imaginability  might  require  elaborate  pains- 
taking. Of  books  on  this  theme  the  gen- 
ealogy is  endless.  But  while  it  belongs  to 
the  highest  range  of  religious  thought,  that 
fact  has  its  advantages  to  thinking.  Spirit- 
ual vision  is  clear  in  this  upper  air.  The  re- 
ligious imagination  will  be  found  more  at  home 
with  the  truths  involved  in  the  fatherhood  of 
God  than  with  any  thus  far  considered.  This 
is  only  to  say  that  the  better  we  know  God, 
the  easier  it  is  to  know  still  more  about  him. 

God  is  the  Father,  and  the  good  man  is  the 
child.  Whatever  warrant  is  in  the  Bible  or 
out  of  it  for  calling  God  the  Father  of  all  men, 
whatever   fatherlike   compassion   he    may   feel 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO    THE  FATHER  1 25 

for  wicked  men,  and  whatever  more  than  father- 
love  he  may  show  in  giving  his  Son  to  deliver 
them  from  sin,  it  is  certain  that  a  peculiar  and 
near  relation  exists  between  God  and  the  good, 
a  relation  which  all  will  agree  in  styling 
paternal. 

Has  God  made  his  child  immortal  ?  The 
eye  reads  only  ''No."  To  the  eye  death 
seems  more  triumphant  over  man  than  over 
any  other  creature.  No  other  triumph  so 
complete,  none  so  appalling.  No  tree  that 
crumbles  in  the  forest,  no  fish  that  rots  on 
the  shore,  looks  so  dead  as  a  dead  man.  So 
it  seems  to  the  eye ;  how  does  it  strike  the 
imagination  }  If  a  man  is  bad,  imagination  does 
not  grasp  for  him  the  perpetuity  of  life.  The 
endless  existence  of  the  wicked  is,  I  believe, 
sufficiently  evidenced,  but  the  evidence  does 
not  appeal  to  imagination.  Wickedness  and 
death  seem  near  akin.  The  effects  of  immoral- 
ity upon  the  body  cannot  but  appear  to  imagi- 
nation as  the  natural  fatality  of  violating  law. 
Organic  laws  are  the  order  of  life,  and  violation 


126  SERl^ICE   TO   TRUTH 

of  them  is  a  process  of  destruction.  It  is  be- 
cause matter  is  indestructible  that  its  laws  can- 
not be  broken ;  but  organic  laws  can  be  broken, 
because  organisms  can  be  destroyed.  Now, 
in  so  exalted  a  being  as  man,  relations  to  law 
have  moral  quality.  This  connotes  his  rank. 
But  such  preeminence  involves  corresponding 
liabilities.  Certainly  it  must  seem  so.  From 
a  great  height  the  fall  is  far.  Immorality 
must  do  a  man  a  hurt  which  the  same  acts 
would  not  incur  were  they  without  moral 
significance.  That  is  to  say,  in  imagination  it 
must  be  so.  I  do  not  argue  the  point.  No 
argument  is  needed.  Mental  debasement  can- 
not be  bodily  good.  The  mind  sees  and  cannot 
help  but  see  that  if  violations  of  physical  law 
mean  physical  death,  violations  of  moral  law 
have  analogous  consequences.  It  is  matter  of 
fact  that  moral  degeneracy  is  the  result  of 
moral  delinquency  ;  and  imagination  finds 
abundant  congruity  between  destruction  of 
moral  worth  and  destruction  of  that  in  which 
moral   worth,    or    worthlessness,    inheres.       In 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  FATHER  1 2/ 

Other  words,  spiritual  degeneracy  cannot  sug- 
gest to  a  sound  imagination  continued  exemp- 
tion from  death.  A  bad  process  looks  toward 
its  own  terminus  in  the  dissolution  of  the  seat 
of  the  evil.  Imagination  cannot,  therefore, 
expect  for  sin  any  issue  but  ruin.  It  may  be 
either  a  literal  or  a  metaphorical  ruin.  The 
words  "  immortality  of  the  wicked "  do  not 
present  any  coherent  fact  to  the  mind's  eye. 
Continuous  existence  and  immortality  are  far 
from  the  same.  Immortality  is  exemption  from 
death ;  but  in  the  case  of  the  wicked  continuous 
existence  can  be  imagined  only  as  continuous 
death,  or  dying.  It  need  not  be  extinction  of 
being,  but  a  state  fit  to  be  called  "  spiritual 
death."  Such  a  state  imagination  readily  fore- 
casts for  evil  men,  so  readily  that  they  are  not 
infrequently  filled  with  forebodings  of  it  as  pre- 
cisely appropriate  to  themselves.  However  we 
interpret  the  words,  "The  wages  of  sin  is 
death,"  no  utterance  is  more  compact  with 
truth.  It  is  so  vividly  true  that  the  mind  is 
entirely   occupied    with    the   picture   which   it 


128  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

presents,  and  finds  in  it  no  flaw,  no  unreality. 
Imagination  persists  in  the  picture  notwith- 
standing the  horror  of  it.  Custom  may  stale 
but  age  does  not  destroy  it.  Sin  ought  to  die. 
On  the  other  hand,  righteousness  and  life 
are  close  akin.  Observance  of  law  is  the  com- 
plete fulfillment  of  life's  proper  ends.  It  is  it- 
self the  vital  process.  And  the  representation 
of  Christianity  that  life  is  the  reward  of  right- 
eousness lends  itself  as  completely  to  the  im- 
agining power  of  the  mind  as  does  the  expres- 
sion concerning  death  which  was  just  now  con- 
sidered. Indeed,  one  of  those  teachings  would 
hardly  be  credible  if  the  other  were  not  so. 
Pagan  philosophers  went  into  endless  reasoning 
on  the  problem  of  life  after  death ;  but  it  is 
noteworthy  that  the  New  Testament  does  not 
give  this  problem  a  thought.  As,  to  the  wicked, 
death  is  more  than  sheer  non-existence,  so,  to 
the  sound  Christian,  life  is  more  than  mere 
existence.  The  Christian  imagination  never 
lingers  over  visions  which  would  satisfy  Socra- 
tes.    On    the   contrary,  it   is  with  a  shock    of 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  FATHER  129 

not  altogether  pleasing  surprise  that  one  reads 
the  mystical  tales  of  our  day  which  attempt  to 
give  reality  to  the  life  beyond  by  describing 
it  as  an  unbroken  continuance  of  the  present 
life  without  sense  of  interruption  or  change. 
Tales  like  these  can  be  made  to  appear  true 
only  if  the  reader  is  willing  for  a  time  to  pagan- 
ize himself.  Existence  beyond  the  grave  must 
be  imagined  as  organically  connected  with  our 
present  existence  in  the  body,  or  it  will  not  be 
imagined  as  our  own  existence ;  but  at  the  same 
time  the  Christian  conceptions  of  death  and  life 
are  so  profoundly  spiritual  that  the  "second 
death "  must  be  conceived  as  in  some  sort 
spiritual,  and  eternal  life  as  transcendently 
superior  to  life  on  earth.  The  next  world  is 
to  be  imagined  as  a  world  of  undisguised  and 
unfolded  reality,  while  this  world  by  comparison 
is  a  world  of  concealment  and  illusion.  This  is 
surely  the  picture  which  Christian  imagination 
has  ever  drawn,  or  sought  to  draw.  If  anyone 
finds  hint  of  a  lower  conception  in  the  chief 
source  of    Christian  thought,  the  Sacred  Scrip- 


130  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

tures,  that  hint  has  escaped  the  myriads  who 
have  studied  the  Scriptures  as  the  Book  of  Life. 
It  has  taught  them  to  use  the  largest  scale  and 
the  richest  colors  in  their  picture  of  the  future 
life.  What  the  Church  has  found  it  fit  to 
imagine  concerning  the  better  world  may  be 
known  from  her  hymns.  She  has  been  con- 
stantly singing  of  heaven,  from  the  essentially 
poetical  representations  of  the  Apocalypse  to 
the  slow  growing,  exultant  Te  Deum  which  the 
sixth  century  first  heard  complete ;  from  Ber- 
nard's De  Contemptu  Mimdi  in  the  twelfth 
century,  so  scornful  of  this  world,  so  enraptured 
with  ''Jerusalem  the  Golden,"  to  the  quiet 
song  of  the  sixteenth  century,  "  O  Mother  dear, 
Jerusalem;"  while  the  last  two  hundred  years 
have  yielded  a  continued  outburst  of  hymnody 
which  has  sought  even  out  of  the  mouths  of 
babes  and  sucklings  to  make  the  praise  of 
heaven  perfect ;  and  the  refrain  is  always 

Glories  upon  glories 

Hath  our  God  prepared. 
By  the  souls  that  love  him 

One  day  to  be  shared. 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  FATHER.  131 

Both  in  the  Book  and  in  consequence  of  the 
Book  imagination  has  been  indulged  to  its  ut- 
most. To  expect  it  now  to  abandon  its  large, 
free  style  for  a  modern  "realistic  manner  "is  to 
expect  that  the  genius  of  Christianity  will 
change.  For  what  its  genius  is  can  always  be 
seen  in  its  spontaneous  imaginings.  Anything 
like  the  dreary  limitations  of  the  present  world 
can  never  be  accepted  by  the  picture-making 
faculty  of  Christians  as  a  fit  representation  of 
what  the  love  of  God  has  in  store  for  his  chil- 
dren. It  cannot  be  a  virtual  annihilation,  by 
the  unconscious  retraction  into  his  own  sub- 
stance, of  spirits  which  emanated  from  that  sub- 
stance; it  is  not  a  metempsychosis,  a  life  in 
other  bodies  or  in  the  outer  conditions  of  the 
present;  but  it  is  heaven.  If  the  present  life 
were  as  Buddhists  conceive  it,  a  misfortune  with 
submission  as  its  chief  virtue,  then  Nirvana 
might  be  the  destiny  most  to  be  desired.  But 
if  life  is  a  manful  conflict  chiefly  with  moral  evil, 
its  issues  should  be  as  active;  Nirvana  would  be 
a  penalty,  and  holy  joy,  in  a  perfected  body, 


132  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

among  exalted  companions,  its  only  suitable 
and  its  only  imaginable  reward. 

One  might  allow  himself  for  a  moment  the 
odd  conceit  that,  if  a  human  life  were  flawless, 
completely  rounded  and  sufficient  in  itself,  this 
finished  product  would  not  need  to  continue 
beyond  the  grave.  But  the  best  lives  are 
not  so  fatally  complete.  No  one  pretends  to 
absolute  perfection  on  earth.  The  lives  of 
God's  dear  children  are  both  too  good  and  too 
defective  to  let  us  imagine  him  content  that 
they  should  end  as  they  are.  So  it  seems  and 
must  seem  to  the  imagination  which  imagines 
God  as  Father.  How  imagine  him  content  to 
let  his  children  perish  .?  The  only  problem  is, 
can  we  imagine  that  there  is  a  good  God.?  If 
we  do,  we  must  also  imagine  the  eternal  life  of 
holy  souls. 

To  this  must  be  added  that  the  resurrection 
of  the  body,  which  has  always  appeared  and 
still  appears  to  philosophers  fantastic,  just  as 
powerfully  appeals  to  ordinary  imaginations  for 
acceptance.     Every  theory  of  the  resurrection 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  FATHER  I  33 

leaks  like  a  sieve ;  but  it  is  a  resurrection 
which  makes  life  beyond  the  grave  imaginable. 
So  entire  possession  of  Christian  imagination 
has  been  secured  by  this  beUef  that  without  it 
to  Paul  nothing  would  be  left  of  Christianity, 
and  to  modern  Christians  no  charm  would  re- 
main in  the  future  life.  No  one  wants  to  be  a 
ghost,  but  perhaps  all  Christian  folk  would  be 
glad  to  be  clothed  upon  at  once  with  their 
house  which  is  from  heaven.  The  reality  of 
resurrection  is  to  imagination  the  reality  of 
life.  The  disembodied  state  is,  and  seems  to 
be,  death. 

2.   Will  He  Speak.? 

But  will  the  Father  speak  to  his  children  }  To 
imagination  this  is  certain.  A  Father  voluntar- 
ily dumb  would  be  demented.  How  can  we  im- 
agine the  all-wise  Father  forever  silent  .?  Ideas 
so  incongruous  were  never  successfully  coupled 
in  imagination,  and  never  will  be.  The  Chris- 
tian faith  in  the  Bible  is  not  due  to  arguments. 
Few    Christians    know   any  arguments   for  the 


134  SERVICE  TO    TRUTH 

Bible.     Faith  in  it  is  the  work  of  imagination 
fortified  by  experience. 

How  this  matter  presents  itself  to  imagina- 
tion may  be  illustrated  by  fancying  a  case  some 
features  of  which  have  repeatedly  occurred. 
A  certain  father  has  to  leave  his  children  for 
many  years  while  they  are  too  young  to  recol- 
lect him.  He  is  rich  and  he  is  wise.  He 
makes  every  provision  that  forethought  and 
wealth  can  assure.  They  have  a  suitable 
house,  all  equipment  for  health  and  comfort, 
servants  in  plenty,  and  teachers  both  learned 
and  apt.  He  leaves  with  them  everything  save 
a  word  from  himself.  They  may  be  taught 
everything  except  something  about  him.  They 
must  guess  at  what  he  is  from  what  he  has 
done.  It  is  unimaginable.  They  may  ask  all 
the  questions  about  him  that  they  please,  but 
no  information  is  ever  to  be  given  them  from 
those  that  know  the  father  well.  They  infer 
enough  to  long  to  know  more  ;  but  they  must 
not  be  told.  They  may  yearn  after  him,  may 
try,  as  children  do,  to  send  their  love  to  him  ; 


PROBLEMS  AS    TO    THE  FATHER  1 35 

yet  no  assurance  is  ever  to  be  accorded  that 
their  message  goes,  least  of  all  may  any  mes- 
sage be  brought  back.  It  is  beyond  imagina- 
tion. Trouble  comes,  the  worst  trouble.  The 
servants  grow  faithless,  the  teachers  betray 
their  trust.  The  children  are  stripped  of  their 
goods,  taught  lies,  trained  in  vice.  They  know 
only  that  they  are  distressed  and  degraded. 
They  cry  out  for  their  father.  They  want  to 
know  what  he  would  have  them  do,  what  be, 
and  they  beg  for  his  help.  He  knows  all  about 
it ;  but  he  closes  his  ears,  will  not  utter  a 
word  of  instruction,  of  help,  of  hope.  Such 
a  thing  cannot  be  dreamed  of  in  the  maddest 
dream.  There  never  was  such  a  father.  There 
could  not  be.  He  would  not  be  human  ;  he 
would  be  a  beast.  Oh  !  who  can  imagine  that 
God  will  never  speak.?  He  hears  our  cry,  he 
sees  our  whole  estate.  Who  can  imagine  that 
he  turns  away  his  face,  closes  his  ears,  and 
seals  his  lips  }  And  who  can  prefer  to  ima- 
gine that  he  will  not  speak }  He  will  send  a 
message.     He  will  find  a  way  to  send  it.     To 


136  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH 

a  healthful  imagination  there  is  no  problem  at 
all.  Revelation,  illumination,  inspiration,  what 
you  will,  are  a  certainty  ;  their  lack  alone  is 
beyond  belief.  Even  when  we  think  of  earthly 
fathers  who  are  not  utterly  vicious,  we  can 
understand  the  challenge  once  addressed  to 
our  imaginations  :  "  If  ye  then,  being  evil, 
know  how  to  give  good  gifts  to  your  children, 
how  much  more  will  your  heavenly  Father  give 
the  Holy  Spirit  to  those  who  ask  him  ? " 

If  imaginability  makes  it  sure  that  messages 
have  been  received  from  heaven,  it  will  certainly 
be  asked  why  imagination  may  not  settle  it  that 
such  messages  are  coming  to-day.  It  must  be 
admitted  that,  when  Jesus  promised  revelations 
by  the  Holy  Spirit,  he  set  no  date  for  them  to 
cease.  But  it  is  also  true  that  when  he  promised 
miracles,  no  period  was  fixed  beyond  which  they 
would  no  longer  be  performed.  So  far  as  the 
assurances  of  the  New  Testament  are  involved 
it  would  be  enough  to  say  that  both  miracles 
and  revelations  of  new  truth  are  still  possible. 
If  then  one  believes  that  he  has  received  a  fresh 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  FATHER  1 37 

revelation,  let  him  tell  it  ;  or  if  he  thinks 
miracles  are  still  performed,  let  him  show  some 
to  us.  We  will  believe  in  both  when  there  is 
evidence  enough.  But  such  a  reply  would  be 
quite  too  obviously  an  attempt  to  evade  the 
point  made  against  the  trustworthiness  of  imagi- 
nation as  to  issues  of  fact :  namely,  that  an  ap- 
peal to  imagination  proves  too  much,  if  it  proves 
anything.  The  issue  is,  are  not  both  miracles 
and  revelations  as  imaginable  now  as  ever  they 
were } 

The  perspicacity  of  imagination  is  quite  ade- 
quate to  meet  such  a  test.  There  is  now  no 
imaginable  need  of  miracles;  there  is  every 
imaginable  objection  to  them.  The  moment  we 
imagine  the  state  to  which  society  would  be 
brought  if  the  great  works  ascribed  to  Christ 
were  repeated  in  our  day,  with  the  publicity 
which  he  faced,  and  which  alone  would  make 
them  an  appeal  to  the  day,  we  must  be  satisfied 
that  the  sensation  which  would  be  caused,  the 
running  to  and  fro  of  reporters,  the  telegraphing, 
the  scientific  inquisition,  the  distraction  of  inter- 


138  SERVICE   TO   TRUTH     . 

est  from  the  spiritual  objects  of  religion  to  such 
earthly  interests  at  best  as  miracles  might  pro- 
vide for,  —  these  all  would  reduce  Christianity  to 
a  gazing-stock  and  be  its  undoing  as  a  power  for 
righteousness.  The  Master  himself  over  and 
again  tried  to  avoid  the  consequences  of  public 
wonderment.  It  is  imaginable,  it  is  certain,  that, 
however  indispensable  in  their  time  as  an  attes- 
tation to  Christ,  miracles  ceased  none  too  soon, 
and  if  repeated  to-day,  would  be  the  sorest  hurt 
that  Christianity  could  receive. 

As  to  revelations  of  new  truth  in  our  day,  a 
steady  appeal  to  imagination  is  all  which  imagi- 
nation requires  in  support  of  her  verdict.  Is 
the  situation  one  which  in  a  single  particular 
imaginably  calls  for  new  revelations  }  Picture 
the  situation,  and  question  it  closely.  Are  not 
the  **  oracles  of  God "  ample  enough  for  all 
instruction  that  men  veritably  require  in  either 
morals  or  faith .?  Could  the  most  elaborate 
code  of  casuistry  relieve  conscience  of  all  need 
to  answer  questions .?  And  if  a  code  were 
voluminous  enough  to  cover  all  cases,  would  it 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  FATHER  139 

not  be  far  too  voluminous  to  use  ?  Is  not  moral- 
ity provided  by  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  with 
foundations  deep  and  wide  enough,  and  equipped 
with  tests  searching  enough,  to  meet  all  require- 
ments of  practical  ethics  ?  Or  are  there  out- 
standing problems  in  Christian  doctrine  which 
ought  not  to  be  longer  left  to  theology  for  a 
doubtful  solution  ?  Is  any  doctrine  about  spirit- 
ual things  missing  which  could  help  us, 
upon  the  whole,  to  make  more  sure  of  spiritual 
good  ?  Was  the  Bible  ever  meant  for  a  text- 
book in  speculative,  or  even  philosophical,  divin- 
ity ?  Would  it  be  better  had  it  taught  doctrine 
not  only  when  such  teaching  had  a  practical  aim, 
as  it  did,  but  when  it  might  have  stated  an 
authorized  theory,  as  it  never  did  ?  Is  there 
any  spiritual  interest  which  would  be  promoted 
by  an  answer  from  heaven  to  any  of  the  open 
questions  of  this  age,  or  to  those  which  kept 
inquiring  minds  busy  in  former  ages  ?  For  my 
own  part  —  and  I  think  the  opinion  is  supported 
by  the  explicit  and  unvarying  testimony  of 
church  history  —  imagination  can  discern  no  net 


140  SERVICE    TO    TRUTH 

advantage  to  any  age,  past  or  present,  in  any 
addition  to  the  deposit  of  religious  truth  which 
has  been  committed  to  the  church.  Meantime, 
the  Spirit  of  God  is  affording  deeper  insight 
into  the  revelations  long  ago  imparted  ;  and  not 
even  imaginably  does  the  church  need  any  fur- 
ther enlightenment  than  is  so  supplied.  Under- 
derstanding  is  deepening,  discerned  relations 
widening,  and  knowledge  as  always  heretofore 
runs  as  far  in  advance  of  obedience  as  is  well 
for  the  church  or  the  world. 

3.  Will  He  Come.? 

Thus  we  reach  the  highest  problem  with 
which  imagination  ever  dared  to  deal :  Will  the 
Father  come  to  his  children .?  Many  religions 
teach  that  the  gods  have  visited  men,  but  only 
the  Christian  religion  has  ventured  to  teach  that 
the  true  God  has  come  and  dwelt  among  us. 
Jews  believed  in  him,  but  did  not  believe  this 
of  him,  nor  do  they  to  this  day  find  it  possible  to 
believe.  Paul  well  said  that  "eye  hath  not  seen, 
nor  ear  heard,   neither  have  entered   into  the 


PROBLEMS  AS    TO    THE  FATHER  141 

heart  of  man  the  things  which  God  hath  prepared 
for  them  that  love  him."  Not  things  in  heaven, 
but  one  thing  on  earth ;  not  a  prospect  for  the 
future,  but  a  reality  achieved  in  the  past.  The 
Father  came,  and  they  who  saw  the  Son  saw 
the  Father.  When  once  this  had  been  made 
known,  no  other  idea  ever  so  captivated  the 
imagination.  The  Father  has  come !  The 
vivid  thought  of  it  has  taken  so  sure  possession 
of  the  human  mind  that  it  can  never  be  dis- 
lodged. Not  a  few  of  those  who  feel  compelled 
formally  to  forego  this  faith,  are  imagining  some- 
thing like  it,  and  the  new  thing  is  to  make  an 
imagination  of  the  fact  serve  every  purpose  of 
the  fact, — and  no  questions  asked.  Never 
was  the  power  of  religious  imagination  so 
supreme,  so  sufficing  in  every  interest  of  Chris- 
tian truth,  as  the  Ritschlian  "judgment  of 
worth"  now  shows  it  to  be.  Thus  may  be 
understood  the  invincibility  of  belief  in  a  doc- 
trine which  has  revolted  many  earnest  thinkers. 
To  reason,  it  is  the  reproach  of  popular  Chris- 
tianity ;  but  it   is  the  chief  recommendation  of 


142  SERVICE   TO    TRUTH 

Christianity  to  the  popular  imagination.  This 
explains  another  remarkable  fact  in  the  history 
of  Christian  beliefs. 

For  with  the  exaltation  of  Christ  imagination 
has  presently  exalted  the  worth  of  all  he  did  and 
bore.  It  has  proved  impracticable  to  exalt  him 
and  depreciate  either  his  sufferings  or  his  work, 
to  put  disparity  between  what  he  was  and  what 
he  did,  or  between  what  he  is  and  does.  The 
history  of  Christianity  as  a  life  enforces  the 
lesson  of  it  as  a  system  of  thought;  namely, 
that  it  is  most  vigorous  when  Christ  is  most 
exalted,  because  then  the  imagination  is  most 
thoroughly  enlisted.  On  the  other  hand,  all 
the  compassionate  concessions  to  the  skepticism 
of  others  or  of  oneself,  that  is,  all  the  conces- 
sions to  the  weak  imagination  of  ourselves  or 
others,  instead  of  winning  faith  to  this  lesser 
Christ,  make  it  a  matter  of  indifference  what  is 
thought  about  him.  But  from  this  evident  and 
felt  bathos  of  Christian  thought  imagination  is 
presently  found  to  be  drawing  Christians  up 
as  from  a  conscious  irrationality  and  disloyalty. 


PROBLEMS  AS    TO    THE  FATHER  1 43 

Jesus  said  that,  if  he  were  lifted  up,  he  would 
draw  all  men  unto  him  :  to  be  lifted  on  the  cross 
was  to  be  lifted  in  human  esteem.  But  it  has 
also  been  true  heretofore  in  all  Christian  ages 
that  to  raise  Christ  himself  in  man's  esteem  is 
to  raise  his  cross  in  man's  esteem.  Will  imagi- 
nation lead  to  a  contrary  issue  in  our  age  .'* 

On  this  subject  the  most  telling  of  all  appeals 
to  imagination  was  made  by  our  Lord  himself 
in  his  majestic  portrayal  of  the  final  test : 
"  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of  the 
least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye  have  done  it 
unto  me."  When  was  anything  else  so  intel- 
ligible ever  said  as  to  how  Christ  can  stand  in 
our  place  before  God,  as  his  appeal  to  us  to 
imagine  him  standing  before  ourselves  in  the 
lowest  Christian's  place .?  If  we  respond  to 
his  appeal,  if  we  have  learned  how  to  visit  the 
least  of  his  brethren  in  sickness,  in  prison,  to 
feed  him,  to  bear  with  him,  to  love  him  utterly 
and  to  the  end ;  and  if  all  the  while  we  make  it 
seem  Christ  whom  we  feed  and  clothe,  receive 
and   visit  and  bear  with ;    if   we   can   do  this, 


144  SERVICE   TO    TRUTH 

and  if  we  do  it,  then  are  we  able  to  imagine 
how  God  does  the  hke  for  us.  To  the  heart, 
if  not  to  the  head,  the  atonement  is  a  solved 
problem.  Discharging  such  service  in  such  a 
spirit  we  no  more  incHne  to  doubt  or  to  make 
little  of  hiding  in  Christ  before  the  Father's 
face,  than  we  incline  to  make  little  or  to  doubt 
of  losing  in  Christ  the  least  of  his  brethren. 
Even  although  such  an  experience  has  been  al- 
together untried  by  us,  we  can  at  least  call  up 
the  image  of  the  most  unlovely  Christian  we 
know  ;  we  can  imagine  ourselves  dealing  with 
him  without  any  thought  of  his  demerit,  only 
of  Christ's  merit  ;  and  when  we  imagine  our- 
selves doing  for  him  what  we  would  leap  for 
joy  to  do  for  our  Lord,  then  our  souls  melt 
within  us  at  the  thought  that  in  this  very  way 
the  merits  of  Christ  may  answer  for  our  de- 
merit when  we  sinners  take  refuge  in  him.  On 
the  strong  wing  of  this  bold  imagination,  lent 
us  by  our  Lord,  we  can  rise  high  enough  to 
look  into  the  Father's  own  heart,  and  under- 
stand how  glad  he  is  to  do  it  unto  us  as  though 


PROBLEMS  AS   TO   THE  FATHER  145 

he  were  doing  it  unto  his  Son.  It  is  a  per- 
mitted stretch  of  faith,  of  the  faith  which  is 
a  rehgious  use  of  imagination,  of  the  faith  con- 
cerning which  it  was  written,  "By  faith,"  that 
is,    by   imagination,    "  we    understand ; "    wTa 


PART  SECOND 

SERVICE   OF   IMAGINATION   TO 
RELIGIOUS   LIFE 

Aia  TrL(TT€Oi<i  TrepLiraTOv/xcv. 

Paul. 


EXPOSITORY  149 


EXPOSITORY 
I.    Walking  by  Imagination 

Paul  said  ''  We  walk  by  faith,  not  by  sight  "  : 
he  meant  we  walk  by  imagination,  not  by  sight. 
When  we  walk  by  sight  we  know  our  way  by 
objects  which  the  eye  sees ;  when  we  walk  by 
faith  we  order  our  lives  by  objects  which  the 
mind  sees.  It  is  not  commonly  noticed  that 
Paul  accords  such  a  place  to  imagination ;  but 
that  he  does  is  clear  from  whatever  else  he  was 
saying  to  the  Corinthians  in  this  part  of  his 
second  epistle  to  them.  At  the  end  of  the 
previous  chapter,  the  fourth,  Paul  became  un- 
usually exultant  even  for  him.  All  things,  he 
said,  are  for  our  sake.  Afflictions  work  for  us 
an  eternal  glory  of  such  weight  as  makes  their 
own  duration  seem  momentary  and  their  press- 
ure  light.      But   this  is   only  while  "we   look 


150  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

not  at  the  things  that  are  seen,  but  at  the 
things  that  are  not  seen."  It  is  a  matter  of 
imagining.  Whereupon  in  opening  the  fifth 
chapter  he  tells  us  what  are  those  unseen  things 
of  interest  so  surpassing.  They  are  the  "  house 
not  made  with  hands  "  and  the  companionship 
of  the  Lord.  We  keep  the  mind's  eye  upon 
that  house  and  upon  him.  We  are  so  filled 
with  the  vision  that  we  would  be  pleased,  said 
Paul,  to  be  "  absent  from  the  body  and  present 
with  the  Lord."  Such  a  vision  gives  us  solemn 
thoughts  too.  While  the  Lord  is  so  plainly 
seen  we  seek  to  please  him  as  though  we  were 
where  he  is.  It  is  really  much  the  same,  for 
at  the  last  all  that  we  are  doing  will  come  to 
light  in  his  presence.  It  awes  us.  We  are 
concerned  for  others  also,  quite  in  fear  for 
them.  And  so,  continues  Paul,  we  seek  to  per- 
suade them  to  look  at  what  we  see,  and  to  walk 
by  that  vision  as  we  walk. 

Thus  Paul  lives  and  thus  teaches.  From  first 
to  last  he  speaks  as  the  man  whose  eyes  are 
open,  who   sees  constantly  what   Stephen  said 


EXPOSITORY  151 

that  he  also  saw,  "the  heavens  opened,  and 
the  Son  of  Man  standing  on  the  right  hand 
of  God."  It  is  not  the  only  instance  in  which 
the  high  souled  apostle  explains  the  best  in  him 
by  his  use  of  imagination.  In  the  intimacy  of 
the  letter  to  his  dear  Philippians  he  disclaims 
indeed  being  a  complete  and  perfect  character. 
Rather  he  turns  his  back  on  every  attainment 
already  made,  and  reaches  forth  unto  the  things 
before,  a  runner  with  his  eyes  upon  the  goal. 
It  is  largely  this  picture-forming  habit  of  mind 
which  made  Paul  what  he  was  and  enabled  him 
to  do  with  us  what  he  beyond  all  other  men  has 
made  out  to  do. 

2.    A  Definition  Defined 

The  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  Pauline  in 
many  respects ;  but  in  none  does  its  unknown 
writer  show  a  more  Paul-Uke  penetration  than 
in  the  great  chapter  on  faith  and  its  heroes. 
He  defines  faith  in  terms  which  have  perplexed 
many  a  reader  who  looked  to  it  for  some  recog- 
nition of  trust  as  the  very  essence  of  faith.     But 


152  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

the  writer  does  not  define  faith  as  trust,  nor 
does  he  illustrate  it  as  especially  trust ;  he  de- 
fines it  as  that  which  is  the  condition  of  trust, 
namely,  a  lively  sight  of  unseen  realities ;  and 
he  illustrates  it  as  such.  What  is  "assurance 
of  things  hoped  for  "  except  a  vision  of  them  as 
sure  as  though  they  were  already  in  possession? 
And  what  is  "  conviction  of  things  not  seen " 
except  a  mental  seeing  which  is  as  convincing 
as  a  bodily  seeing  ?  And  so,  according  to  this 
epistle,  faith  is  imagination  of  things  hoped  for, 
imagination  of  things  not  seen.  Let  all  who 
please  follow  the  trooping  illustrations  of  the 
chapter  from  the  vision  of  creation  to  Noah's 
prevision  of  the  flood,  from  Abraham's  depar- 
ture for  a  land  which  lay  he  knew  not  where,  to 
the  endurance  of  Moses  "as  seeing  him  who  is 
invisible  "  ;  and  when  time  fails  for  calling  the 
roll  of  heroes,  read  the  summary  of  the  trials 
they  bore,  and  the  manifold  fidelity  they  showed, 
up  to  its  culmination  in  the  "  author  and  finisher 
of  our  faith,"  to  whom  we  are  to  look  away  as 
he  himself  looked  to  "the  joy  set  before  him." 


EXPOSITORY  153 

That  is,  if  imagination  served  them,  and  served 
Jesus  so  well,  let  us  in  turn  imagine  Jesus ; 
this  is  the  point  of  it  all. 

The  biblical  teaching  is  that  the  faith  which  . 
sees,  the  religious  use  of  imagination,  is  neces- 
sary to  the  best  religious  life.  Does  not  the 
experience  of  every  Christian  illustrate  this 
fact  .?  Who  does  not  recollect  some  earliest 
occasion  when  he  saw  the  Lord,  and  how  it 
made  Christ  to  him  as  one  for  the  first  time 
heard  of }  Who  has  not  since  then  often 
enjoyed  moments  of  especial  clarity  when  trite 
doctrines  became  shining  truths  .?  The  confes- 
sion of  every  man  who  has  turned  from  worldly, 
to  spiritual,  mindedness  is  that  once  he  had  no 
"  realizing  sense  "  of  spiritual  things,  and  that, 
when  the  plain  vision  of  them  began,  then 
began  their  ascendency  over  him.  As  with 
one  man  so  with  a  generation.  The  doctrine 
of  justification  by  faith  was  not  Luther's  dis- 
covery. He  himself  had  been  told  of  it,  but 
told  in  vain,  until  at  length  imagination  laid 
hold  of  the  reality.     Thereafter  so  did  it  glow 


154  SERVICE    TO  LIFE 

that  he  lit  up  Europe  with  it.  It  was  not  in- 
deed a  new  truth,  but  a  disregarded  truth  ; 
only,  when  people  began  to  imagine  it,  the  dis- 
regarded truth  had  the  effect  on  that  genera- 
tion of  a  message  written  across  the  sky. 
Such  is  the  uniform  story  of  Christian  living, 
when  we  can  search  it  to  the  bottom.  If  doc- 
trines are  imagined,  they  are  lived  ;  if  unima- 
gined,  they  are  dead.  It  remains  to  illustrate 
this  thesis  as  regards  the  three  essentials  of 
Christian  living. 

In  showing  how  imagination  is  a  test  of 
truth,  I  took  the  precaution  at  the  outset  to  say 
that  imagination  by  its  lively  picturing  merely 
prepares  the  case  for  the  understanding  to  pass 
upon  ;  and  I  asked  leave  to  speak  of  imagina- 
tion as  judge,  solely  for  the  sake  of  point  and 
brevity.  No  such  precaution  is  needed  in 
unfolding  the  relation  of  imagination  to  life. 
Here  no  mere  figure  of  speech  is  resorted  to. 
In  the  directest  way  imagination  provides  for 
the  best  living. 

This  is  so  evident  on  the  mere  assertion  of  it 


EXPOSITORY  155 

that,  although  the  fact  is  not  at  all  familiar,  it 
will  not  be  necessary  to  mention  imagination 
once  in  every  dozen  lines.  What  we  are  to  be 
busied  with  is  not  how  imagination  helps,  but 
how  much  she  helps.  We  need  no  proof,  we 
need  illustration,  of  what  she  can  do.  If  it 
were  to  be  a  matter  of  argument,  iteration  and 
reiteration  might  be  required,  as  in  the  First 
Part ;  but  since  it  is  a  matter  of  illustration 
only,  no  one,  I  am  sure,  will  need  constant 
reminder  that  it  is  imagination  which  puts  us 
in  possession  of  the  bountiful  fields  which  we 
are  about  to  survey. 


1,6  SERVICE    TO  LIFE 


II 

IMAGINATION  SEES  IDEALS 

I.    Christ  Offers  Ideals  to  Imagination 

The  least  sentimental  of  men  are  ruled  by 
ideals.  These  may  be  ideals  of  something  to 
be  worked  out  to-day,  or  of  rest,  it  may  be  of 
amusement,  at  the  day's  end.  They  may  be 
ideals  of  self-indulgence  or  of  self-denial ;  of 
ends  no  further  off  than  self-indulgence  usually 
is,  or  as  remote  as  the  aims  of  self-denial  must 
commonly  seem.  But  all  rational  beings  live, 
if  possible,  with  some  object  in  mind,  and  im- 
agination holds  this  object  up  to  view  until 
another  ideal  object  takes  its  place.  Otherwise 
existence  would  be  made  intolerable  with  ennui. 
For  the  most  part  life  is  calculated.  Utterly 
unpremeditated  action  is  rare.  The  premedi- 
tation may  indeed  be  brief,  but  at  its  briefest 


IMAGINATION  SEES  IDEALS  157 

is  sometimes  long  enough  to  commit  a  man's 
entire  life  to  virtue,  or  to  get  him  hanged. 

Good  or  bad,  every  man  is  like  his  ideals. 
"As  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart  so  is  he." 
People  can  hardly  be  better  than  a  good  ideal, 
and  are  not  often  worse  than  a  bad  one.  We 
live  for  ideals,  and  are  like  what  we  care 
enough  for  to  live  for.  It  is  hardly  worth  say- 
ing, certainly  not  worth  saying  here  at  greater 
length.     What  is  imagination's  part  in  all  this  .? 

Obviously  enough  it  belongs  to  imagination 
to  picture  the  ends  that  shape  us.  But  the  real 
dominance  of  imagination  begins  to  appear 
when  we  note  how  imagination  goes  about  its 
practical  offices.  It  is  by  embodying  ideals.  A 
person  must  stand  for  our  ideals.  No  abstrac- 
tion can  be  master  of  a  man.  But  imagination 
enjoys  this  enormous  advantage,  that  the  most 
persuasive  embodiment  of  ideals  is  far  and  away 
the  easiest  to  form  ;  to  wit,  one's  idealized  self. 
No  one  who  cares  to  be  pure  dare  imagine  him- 
self as  indulging  in  vice  ;  and  none  can  find 
a    more   stirring   incentive   to  virtue    than    to 


158  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

picture  himself  as  great  in  goodness.  Ambi- 
tion too  is  kept  ablaze  by  fancying  one's  own 
successes,  like  the  Turkish  commander  in  the 
fiery  poem  dear  to  a  former  generation  of 
schoolboys  ; 

In  dreams  through  camp  and  court  he  bore 
The  trophies  of  a  conqueror. 

Or  if  inveterate  wrong  has  become  intolerable, 
it  would  be  hard  to  guess  which  would  stir 
the  more  a  dynamic  spirit,  to  imagine  oneself 
bringing  society  into  order,  or  helpless  to  do 
any  good.  Moral  ideals  above  all  others  re- 
quire embodiment,  and  are  therefore  most  in 
need  of  aid  from  imagination.  Reason  is  com- 
petent to  pronounce  between  abstract  right  and 
wrong,  and  calmly  gives  inexorable  judgment 
between  these  two.  But  who  will  execute 
judgment  between  actualities  .-*  Who  has  force 
enough  to  see  it  done }  Only  one  who  is 
inspired  by  the  vision  of  embodied  good,  or 
spurred  by  the  sight  of  personified  wrong. 

Now  the  all-important  contribution  of  Chris- 


IMAGINATION  SEES  IDEALS  I  59 

tianity  to  this  end  is  that  it  furnishes  an  ideal 
man,  an  ideal  so  perfect  as  to  be  universal,  and 
universal  that  all  men  may  identify  themselves 
with  him.  Christ  is  the  Christian  ideal;  and 
so  the  initial  problem  for  the  best  living  is. 
Will  I  imagine  Christ  ?  Success  in  so  doing 
does  not  turn  on  knowing  what  he  said,  except 
as  a  clue  to  what  he  was.  His  precepts  can- 
not take  the  place  of  his  person.  It  is  all 
a  matter  of  intimacy  with  Christ,  of  taking  the 
pains  to  imagine  him  truly  and  distinctly.  His 
mere  presence  was  ever  a  touchstone.  For 
him  to  be  among  men  was  to  pass  judgment. 
It  is  inevitable  always  when  men  find  them- 
selves placed  beside  a  perfect  and  appreciable 
pattern.  To  imagine  Christ  is  to  read  in  him 
the  ideals  which  are  characteristic  of  Christi- 
anity. Some  notice  of  two  or  three  among 
these  will  be  the  most  convincing  exposition  of 
what  imagination  can  do,  at  its  best,  for  en- 
nobling life.  It  will  be  found  that,  while 
possibly  every  precept  of  Christianity  may  be 
duplicated  by  another  religion,  Christian  ideals 


l6o  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

are  unique.     This  is  certainly   because    Christ 
himself  is  unique. 

2.  Imagining  it  Possible  to  be  Strong 

One  such  unique  ideal  is  that  moral  energy 
is  possible  for  the  morally  weak.  In  the  pres- 
ence of  Christ  all  his  disciples  felt  strong  —  so 
strong  that  Peter  could  dispute  with  Christ  and 
say,  "Though  all  men  should  deny  thee,  yet 
will  not  I."  Likewise  said  all  his  disciples. 
All  felt  strong  because  he  was  near.  When 
Peter  presently  denied  Christ,  the  Master  was 
no  longer  at  hand  to  his  mind.  At  that  mo- 
ment the  Master  seemed  mastered ;  and  from 
him,  so  misunderstood,  no  strength  was  to  be 
drawn.  But  afterward,  when  the  real  Christ 
was  ever  before  the  minds  of  the  disciples, 
their  strength  did  not  fail. 

There  was  a  race  energetic  beyond  all  an-' 
cient  races,  possibly  at  its  best  more  vigorous 
than  modern  races,  the  old  Roman  race.  Their 
force  carried  everything  before  it.  To  them 
other   peoples   were   weaklings,    and    it    could 


IMAGINATION  SEES  IDEALS  l6l 

never  seem  possible  for  the  weaklings  to  be- 
come strong.  How  regularly  they  gave  way 
before  the  Romans.  But  it  is  the  practical 
problem  of  Christianity  to  achieve  this  imprac- 
ticability. It  undertakes  to  make  the  weakest 
the  strongest.  And  it  has  succeeded  so  far  as 
to  keep  aUve  the  ideal  of  such  a  possibility. 
Paul  was  no  weakling.  A  more  forceful  man 
can  hardly  be  named.  But  he  had  discovered 
in  Christ  an  energy  so  surpassing  his  own  na- 
tive force  that  he  could  state  the  case  only  in  a 
paradox:  "When  I  am  weak,  then  am  I  strong." 
He  meant  that  he  was  strengthened  against  a 
bodily  ailment  which  made  him  cower,  a  buffet- 
ing of  Satan,  and  persecutions  by  evil  men. 
With  such  odds  to  face,  brave  Paul  could  at 
first  think  of  nothing  but  prayer  that  this  thing 
might  pass  from  him.  It  was  while  in  this  ex- 
tremity that  he  was  told,  "My  grace  is  suffi- 
cient for  thee."  He  found  it  so,  and  learned 
to  glory  in  his  infirmity,  because  then  the 
power  of  Christ  rested  upon  him.  This  su- 
perhuman   power   has    been    shared    by  other 


1 62  SERVICE    TO  LIFE 

Christians  since  Paul,  and  has  been  proclaimed 
everywhere  until  the  least  that  can  be  said  of  it 
is  that  the  idea  of  its  possibility  is  the  common 
possession  of  Christendom.  But  for  every  one 
of  us  it  is  the  ideal  of  a  vigor  possible  only  in 
the  companionship  of  Jesus.  One  cannot  im- 
agine himself  as  morally  impotent  while  in  this 
daily  companionship.  It  is  not  that  he  then 
lashes  himself  into  abnormal  courage,  or  spurs 
himself  into  the  passing  frenzy  of  feebleness. 
It  is  only  that  he  sees  Christ,  and  in  seeing 
feels  the  tonic  of  his  presence.  Missing  the 
Lord,  he  must  cry  as  Paul  did,  "  Who  is 
sufficient  for  these  things  .? "  In  imagination 
finding  him,  not  Paul  himself  is  more  confident 
that  he  *'  can  do  all  things  through  Christ  that 
strengtheneth  "  him.  Now,  even  if  one  has  to 
believe  that  you,  stout-hearted  reader,  are  mis- 
taken when  you  say  it  for  yourself,  no  one  can 
help  admitting  that  you,  or  he,  in  a  lively  and 
a  steady  imagining  of  Christ,  will  inevitably 
gain  the  ideal,  or  rather,  be  held  by  the  ideal, 
that  it  is  possible  for  any  one  to  be  strong. 


IMAGINATION  SEES  IDEALS  1 63 

3.  Imagining  it  Beautiful  to  be  Good 

Another  characteristic  Christian  ideal  is  that 
moral  excellence  has  aesthetic  value.  It  is 
beautiful  to  be  good.  An  ancient  race  sur- 
passed all  other  races  in  appreciation  of  beauty. 
Its  taste  was  infallible,  its  works  were  classic. 
We  have  gone  to  school  to  the  Greeks  and 
learned  all  that  our  duller  sensibility  could 
compass.  But  Greek  refinement  never  received 
from  temple,  statue  or  poem  a  distincter  im- 
pression of  beauty  than  untutored  Christians 
obtain  from  more  or  less  distinctly  imagining 
the  moral  character  of  Christ.  None  of  all  who 
knew  him  left  a  credible  tradition,  certainly 
none  wrote  an  enduring  word,  about  his  stature, 
form,  features,  voice  or  bearing ;  but  they  have 
left  the  amplest  impression  concerning  his 
character,  and  that,  too,  without  describing  it. 
This  conviction  of  a  beauty  higher  than  physical 
has  never  since  been  lost.  It  was  peculiarly 
strong  in  the  centuries  when  artists  thought 
it   irreverent    to   accord   any   physical    comeli- 


1 64  S£Rl/ICE   TO  LIFE 

ness  to  Jesus.      Bernard  sang  in  the  eleventh 
century,  — 

Jesus,  the  very  thought  of  thee 
With  sweetness  fills  my  breast. 

Pious  souls  have  not  more  loved  than  they  have 
admired  the  Son  of  Man. 

Now  to  find  in  moral  excellence  the  ideal  of 
beauty  is  an  unique  habit  of  mind  among  Chris- 
tians. And  it  is  of  priceless  moral  value.  It 
has  been  quite  common  enough  to  exalt  admira- 
tion of  beauty  into  a  religion.  Many  an  artist 
would  subscribe  to  Rousseau's  confession  that 
he  always  thought  the  good  was  only  a  form  of 
the  beautiful.  But  to  resolve  all  good  into  the 
beautiful  is  quite  another  thing  from  finding 
beauty  in  goodness,  even  an  opposite  thing. 
"Art  for  art's  sake"  can  placidly  look  on  while 
virtue  and  vice  display  each  its  peculiar  charm. 
Indeed,  the  Greek  art  seems  essentially  pagan. 
It  is  too  self-contained,  physically  too  perfect  to 
suggest  that  anything  spiritual  can  be  finer  than 
itself.     An  idolatry  which  makes  its  gods  ugly 


IMAGINATION  SEES  IDEALS  1 65 

makes  them  hateful ;  but  an  idolatry  which 
apotheosizes  beauty  fails  to  remind  us  that 
there  are  gods,  even  while  it  leads  us  through 
their  perfect  temples  and  shows  us  their  incom- 
parable images.  Nevertheless  loveliness  is  for- 
ever charming.  It  is  its  own  warrant  to  be, 
to  be  admired,  and  to  be  longed  for.  Christian- 
ity therefore  has  done  well  to  satisfy  at  once  the 
highest  aesthetic  and  the  purest  moral  taste  by 
establishing  the  conviction  that  no  other  beauty 
compares  with  that  of  goodness.  This  convic- 
tion has  been  sung  into  familiarity  in  the 
words,  — 

Majestic  sweetness  sits  enthroned 
Upon  the  Savior's  brow. 

It  has  grown  to  a  commonplace  among  simple 
Christians.  But  such  persuasion  as  they  feel 
that  it  is  beautiful  to  be  good  they  owe  to  such 
picturing  of  Christ  as  they  practice.  The  idea 
may  lie  on  the  surface  of  their  minds  and  find 
expression  in  cant  phrases  ;  or  it  may  penetrate 
the  depths  of  their  minds  and  be  lodged  there  as 


1 66  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

a  ruling  conviction,  if  only  Christian  folk  make, 
so  to  say,  a  personal  acquaintance,  and  in  imagi- 
nation keep  company  with  their  Lord. 

4.  Imagining  What  Honor  is 

A  third  ideal  is  yet  more  uniquely  and  ex- 
clusively Christian.  It  is  so  intimately  and 
delicately  Christian  as  to  be  hardly  appreciable 
when  announced.  This  is  the  ideal  that  honor 
is  in  humility.  Elusive  and  all  but  incredible 
as  this  notion  of  honor  is,  while  Christ  is  before 
the  mind's  eye  any  different  notion  is  excluded. 
His  precepts  set  forth  this  ideal  of  honor;  much 
more  did  his  person  embody  and  his  life  glorify 
it,  —  that  is,  for  all  who  imagine  him. 

The  sentiment  of  honor  had  its  exemplars  in 
the  knights  of  the  middle  ages.  It  was  fostered, 
if  not  begotten,  by  the  institution  of  chivalry  ; 
and  chivalry  was  a  Christian  institution.  Ac- 
cording to  the  most  favorable  account  of  it, 
every  youth  of  gentle  or  noble  blood,  if  sound 
in  mind  and  body,  was  expected  to  learn  the 
duties    of    knighthood    in   the   service  of   some 


IMAGINATION  SEES  IDEALS  167 

notable  model.  When  at  length  fitted  by  age 
and  accomplishments,  after  a  vigil  of  an  entire 
night  in  church  at  prayer,  the  aspirant  for 
knighthood  in  its  best  form  took  on  him  the 
knightly  vows  of  honesty,  chastity  and,  above  all, 
of  valor  in  defense  of  the  wronged.  Though 
noble  by  birth  he  was  bound  to  risk  his  life  for 
a  peasant  woman  whom  he  might  find  exposed 
to  outrage,  and  often  wandered  far  in  search  of 
wrongs  to  right.  This  obligation  kept  chivalry 
respectable  long  after  it  had  lost  every  other 
title  to  respect  ;  and  although  Cervantes  set 
out  to  make  us  laugh,  he  has  made  us  love  his 
fantastic  Don  Quixote,  who  was  always  so 
amiably  fierce  to  redress  a  wrong.  An  institu- 
tion like  chivalry  could  not  but  give  rise  to 
peculiar  notions  of  personal  dignity.  It  was 
the  moral  dignity  of  duty.  Its  honor,  accord- 
ing to  its  best  exemplars,  was  essentially  in 
humility. 

So  long  as  it  was  associated  with  rank  and 
titles,  humility  could  not  well  be  void  of 
dignity.       Nor    does    Christian    humility    ever 


1 68  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

consist  in  self-disparagement.  True  humble- 
ness of  mind  does  not  exist  apart  from  self- 
respect.  Indeed,  humility  is  the  best  safeguard 
against  humiliation.  It  is  the  reverse  of  vanity  ; 
is  nearer  to  lofty  pride  than  to  meanness  of 
spirit.  It  does  not  consist  in  thinking  ill  of 
oneself  ;  it  consists  in  not  thinking  of  07ieself 
at  all.  Not  to  think  of  oneself,  not  to  be 
self-centered !  If  this  is  the  essence  of  Chris- 
tian humility,  it  is  evident  enough  how  the 
ideal  of  it  may  be  due  to  a  strong  and  per- 
spicacious imagining  of  Christ.  It  is  plain,  too, 
that  only  the  self-respecting  can  afford  to  be 
self-forgetful.  But  these  can  take  the  chances, 
and  their  boldness  in  putting  self  out  of  mind 
is  a  mark  of  confidence  in  their  own  charac- 
ter and  aims.  If  we  ask  who  of  all  Ameri- 
cans stands  highest  in  the  reverence  of  his 
countrymen  and  even,  as  we  please  ourselves 
with  thinking,  in  the  respect  of  mankind,  who 
of  all  our  people  stands  so  high  as  to  be  held 
in  imagination  as  an  ideal  by  all  good  citizens, 
it    is    of    course    the    Father    of    his    Country. 


IMAGINATION  SEES  IDEALS  1 69 

Surely  that  austere  personage  was  not  wanting 
in  respect  for  his  own  character.  He  com- 
pelled deference  from  all  who  approached  him. 
Not  a  few  described  their  sensation  while  in 
his  presence  as  one  of  awe.  But  if  we  ask 
who  of  all  Americans  has  been  most  vilified, 
traduced  and  denounced,  again  it  is  the  Father 
of  his  Country.  And  the  lies  cut  him  to  the 
quick  ;  the  abuse  made  him  rage  in  secret. 
But  did  it  make  him  flinch.?  Did  he  ever 
follow  his  duty  with  laggard  step }  When 
the  issue  was  between  forgetting  himself  and 
forgetting  his  country,  he  remembered  him- 
self only  to  remember  what  such  a  man  as 
he  could  do  and  could  bear  for  his  country. 
This  made  him  masterful.  It  led  his  country- 
men then  and  since  to  exalt  him  almost  into  a 
demigod,  and  even  now  to  resent  all  attempts 
in  the  name  of  historical  truth  at  their  dis- 
illusioning. And  who  has  been  the  most 
loved  of  Americans }  It  was  the  plain  man 
whose  fate  looked  out  of  his  sad  eyes,  appeal- 
ing   not    in    vain   for   the   people's  trust    and 


I/O  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

love.  But  the  martyr  president  was  hardly 
less  maligned  than  Washington.  Indeed,  if 
the  abuse  was  less  violent,  it  was  more  deadly, 
for  it  was  contemptuous.  But  for  Lincoln 
also  the  highest  honor  was  in  humility.  He 
did  not  think  ill  of  himself.  We  know  now 
how  self -controlled  and  how  controlling  his 
spirit  was.  Yet  it  became  almost  an  eccen- 
tricity with  him  to  put  a  man  who  had  abused 
him  into  office,  if  the  abuser  could  be  made 
useful  there.  So  far  as  our  copious  informa- 
tion goes,  he  always  remembered  his  country, 
and  if  necessary  forgot  about  himself.  For 
this  no  one  else  will  ever  forget  him. 

In  religious  history  the  like  characteristic 
challenges  imagination  in  the  case  of  Paul. 
His  self-assertion  at  times  became  almost  vio- 
lent ;  but  it  was  when  to  assert  himself  was  to 
assert  his  cause.  He  would  make  everybody 
bend  to  it,  as  he  bent  himself  to  it.  If  an 
angel  from  heaven  should  preach  any  other 
gospel,  the  angel  could  not  escape  Paul's 
anathema;    but    the    apostle   was   willing   **to 


IMAGINATION  SEES  IDEALS  171 

spend  and  be  spent  "  for  the  childish,  con- 
tentious Corinthians,  and  would  love  them, 
although  the  more  he  loved  the  less  he  was 
loved.  It  was  this  lowliness  of  mind  which 
built  the  lofty  pedestal  on  which  his  image 
stands.  He  was  great  because  he  was  willing 
to  be  small.  Can  we  then  forget  Paul's  Master 
and  our  Master,  or  that  he  called  himself  "  meek 
and  lowly  in  heart "  .?  Did  Jesus  lack  respect 
for  himself }  Does  he  not  startle  us  with 
claims  such  as  mankind  was  never  willing  to 
listen  to  from  any  other  human  being,  but 
rejoices  to  hear  from  him  ?  Yet  he  "  came  not 
to  be  ministered  unto  but  to  minister".  And 
when  he  was  ''found  in  fashion  as  a  man,  he 
humbled  himself  and  became .  obedient  unto 
death.  .  .  .  Wherefore  also  hath  God  highly 
exalted  him,  and  given  him  a  name  above  every 
other  name".  There  never  was  such  humility, 
nor  ever  such  honor.  And  we  all  understand 
that  his  honor  was  in  his  humility,  not  merely 
earned  by  humility.  His  own  precept  to  ambi- 
tious    disciples    was    that    he    who    would    be 


1/2  SERVICE   TO   LIFE 

greatest  among  them  must  be  servant  of  all. 
It  was  an  astute  pope  who  called  himself  "  the 
servant  of  servants."  If  he  could  contrive  to 
serve  all  servants,  nothing  could  prevent  his 
being  lord  of  all  lords.  To  the  imagination  of 
the  great  Gregory  the  ideal  was  the  real. 

As  regards  this  particular  ideal  the  most 
convincing  illustration,  as  in  so  many  other 
cases,  is  to  be  found  in  one's  own  experience. 
Let  the  reader  ask  himself  when  in  all  his  life 
he  was  most  respectable  in  his  own  eyes.  It 
was  surely  in  the  hour  when  he  cared  enough 
for  some  worthy  object  to  be  devoted  to  it  at 
no  small  cost  to  himself.  And  he  now  honors 
what  he  was  in  that  hour  as  highly  as  one 
can  sanely  honor  himself,  providing  that  his 
object  was  worthy  that  for  its  sake  he  should 
smother  all  sense  of  injury  and  affront,  despise 
even  shame,  and  devote  himself  absolutely  to 
it.  One  who  never  did  this  or  something 
like  it,  has  not  yet  found  out  whether  he  is 
thoroughly  respectable  or  not ;  for  to  leave  it 
in  doubt   whether  one  is   capable   of    devoting 


IMAGINATION  SEES  IDEALS  1 73 

himself  unselfishly  to  a  good  cause,  is  to  keep 
it  doubtful  whether  he  is  fit  to  be  trusted  by 
others  or  by  himself.  This  appeal  to  the  read- 
er's self-judgment  has  been  made  without  any 
doubt  of  its  issue.  But  however  whole-hearted 
the  reader's  recognition  of  humility's  honor,  it 
is  quite  as  certain  that  such  an  ideal  is  unusual. 
The  reason  is  clear :  imagination  is  more  busy 
with  self-aggrandizement  than  with  self-denial. 
Yet  it  is  the  fitting  and  grotesque  penalty 
of  abnormal  self-recollection  that,  just  when 
a  man's  imagination  is  busy  with  his  own 
importance,  he  seems  to  others  most  absurd. 
The  more  conspicuous  his  position  the  more 
undignified  his  feeling  appears.  Our  political 
and  military  annals  furnish  enough  painful  in- 
stances of  publicly  displayed  chagrin  toward 
which  public  opinion  has  been  little  better  than 
pitiful,  and  has  often  proved  pitiless.  In  the 
case  of  Christian  ministers  nothing  short  of 
vice  is  so  unworthy  of  their  high  calling  as 
sensitiveness  which  cannot  bear  a  slight,  and 
will    sacrifice    everything    except    itself.      The 


174  SERVICE    TO  LIFE 

disciple  has  forgotten  to  be  as  his  Master,  and 
even  to  imagine  what  his  Master  was.  Such 
absence  of  humility  is  a  defect  in  his  ideal  of 
honor. 

It  is  distinctly  a  lapse  from  professional 
honor ;  for  the  distinction  of  the  learned  pro- 
fessions is  that  one  who  can  profess  especial 
learning  gives  himself  to  the  personal  service 
of  his  fellow-men.  Such  service  at  its  best  on 
the  part  of  a  physician,  lawyer,  clergyman  or 
teacher,  is  as  distinctly  personal  as  that  of  the 
boy  who  blacks  your  shoes.  Its  dignity  is,  in 
part,  that  only  the  learned  can  render  the  ser- 
vice ;  in  part,  that  the  service  is  so  important ; 
but  chiefly  that  it  is  a  service  of  man  to  man. 
A  profession  is  not  a  trade.  Its  end  is  to 
confer,  not  to  receive,  a  benefit.  Its  honor  is 
in  its  humility.  That  professional  services  earn 
an  honorarium  and  that  trade  is  an  advantage 
to  a  buyer,  that  professional  men  are  often 
narrow-minded  and  tradesfolk  Hberal,  is  all 
true,  and  all  apart  from  the  purpose.  The 
trade  must  convey  a  benefit  or  no  one  would 


IMAGINATION  SEES  IDEALS  1 75 

buy,  but  its  real  aim  is  to  sell ;  the  profession 
must  have  its  emoluments  or  few  could  follow 
it,  but  its  real  profits  are  those  of  the  client, 
not  the  practitioner.  If  a  profession  offered 
no  pecuniary  rewards,  still  some  men  would 
adopt  it,  as  members  of  the  English  parliament 
follow  politics  without  pay ;  but  a  trade  could 
hardly  survive  such  conditions,  and  if  it  did, 
would  become  in  all  eyes  a  philanthropy,  not 
a  trade.  Since  the  service  rendered  by  a  pro- 
fession is  so  distinctly  personal,  the  client  is  a 
dependent  on  his  professional  advisers ;  but 
since  trade  aims  to  make  a  profit,  the  buyer  is 
the  patron  of  the  seller,  and  the  seller  calls 
him  so.  Such  is  the  professional  ideal  when 
imagination  is  clear-eyed  and  busied  with  the 
ideal. 

All  this  is  now  well  enough  understood  to 
make  it  seem  a  violation  of  professional  honor 
in  a  minister  of  the  gospel  to  be  controlled  by 
pecuniary  considerations.  The  same  motives 
would  bring  the  same  dishonor  upon  the  law- 
yer, doctor,  teacher  or  politician,  if  his  calling 


176  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

were  recognized  as  equally  honorable  with  the 
minister's  ;  and  in  the  proportion  that  it  falls 
short  of  requiring  disinterestedness,  in  that  pro- 
portion it  lacks  professional  dignity,  and  sacri- 
fices it  to  the  mercenariness  legitimate  in  a 
trade.  Indeed,  it  is  universally  felt  to  be  an 
indignity  to  a  profession  for  a  professional  man 
to  give  prominence  to  his  pecuniary  claims. 
Politics  in  particular,  which  alleges  patriotism 
as  its  motive,  is  especially  under  reproach  when 
the  profession  of  politics  is  allowed  to  become 
a  trade.  Every  one  then  relishes  the  denuncia- 
tion which  Samuel  Johnson  flung  against  a 
certain  active  demagogue  called  "the  patriot," 
when  he  defined  patriotism  as  the  ''last  refuge 
of  a  scoundrel ".  In  other  words,  it  is  essen- 
tially hypocritical  to  set  up  as  a  professional 
man  while  ruled  by  motives  suitable  to  other 
callings.  At  the  same  time  men  of  all  trades  or 
of  none  are  bound  to  serve  their  fellows,  and  all 
life  is  dignified  or  degraded  by  attention  or 
inattention  to  this  duty. 

That  this  is  the  ideal,  and  that  imagination 


IMAGINATION  SEES  IDEALS  1 77 

ought  studiously  to  foster  this  ideal,  finds  singu- 
lar illustration  in  the  excesses  to  which  the  sen- 
timent of  honor  has  led.  The  most  farcical  and 
shocking  of  these  is  the  duello.  When  resorted 
to  out  of  anger  it  is  no  more  worthy  of  notice 
than  the  quarrels  of  boys  or  barbarians,  except 
as  more  deliberate  and  destructive  ;  but  when  it 
is  expected  to  wipe  away  an  infamous  charge, 
the  duel  is  a  recognized  survival  of  trial  by 
battle.  At  this  point  the  requirement  of  chiv- 
alric  honor  that  a  knight  should  expose  himself 
to  every  peril  in  a  good  cause,  was  indispensable 
to  carrying  through  this  appeal,  and  is  still  the 
only  support  of  an  institution  so  murderous  and 
absurd  as  ''the  code."  Submission  to  the  code 
marks  the  lengths  to  which  self-abnegation  can 
go  toward  self-assertion.  It  is  Christian  humil- 
ity become  diabolical  pride  ;  and  humility,  as 
we  noticed  at  the  outset,  is  akin  to  abnormal 
self-respect  or  pride. 

What  cure,  then,  is  there  for  this  well-named 
**  relic  of  barbarism"  ?  The  imagination  which 
fostered  it  has  alone  proved  able  to  uproot  it. 


178  SERVICE    TO  LIFE 

When  imagination  is  turned  to  those  objects 
which  alone  the  duelUst  allows  to  occupy  his 
mind,  it  fixes  his  determination  to  fight.  But 
when  imagination  extends  its  view  to  the  out- 
come of  the  appeal,  it  makes  the  appeal  impos- 
sible except  to  the  sottish  devotee  of  class  ideas. 
Fancy  the  people  present  when  the  duel  ren- 
ders its  irreversible  verdict.  See  the  misery 
to  many  lives,  the  ruin  of  one  life.  Keep  in 
view  a  little  while  the  fact  that,  whether  the 
victim  of  insult  kills  or  is  killed,  the  charge 
against  him  stands  exactly  as  it  did,  and  soon 
the  intolerable  folly  of  the  duel  begins  to  be 
widely  felt.  Argument  never  hit  it  hard  enough. 
The  sorrow  it  caused,  the  shame  it  often  pub- 
lished, never  sufficiently  discredited  it.  But  at 
length  in  our  clear-seeing  and,  as  we  say,  unima- 
ginative age  the  popular  imagination  began 
fairly  to  take  in  the  facts  from  which  it  had 
steadily  looked  away  ;  and  then  the  doom  of  the 
duello  was  sealed.  To  fight  a  duel  now  is  to  be 
ridiculous,  not  honorable.  If  it  still  prevails 
anywhere,  it    is  with    persons  too  thick-witted, 


IMAGINATION  SEES  IDEALS  1 79 

for  all  their  pretensions,  to  see  how  absurd  a 
figure  they  cut  in  the  new  century's  imagination. 
I  have  dwelt  at  length  upon  the  peculiarities 
of  the  Christian  ideal  of  honor  as  illustrative  of 
imagination's  service  to  life.  Here,  I  am  sure, 
is  a  field  for  imagination  indisputably  hers,  and 
indisputably  neglected.  For,  see :  if  humility  is 
honor,  who  can  maintain  even  the  ideal }  Only 
he  that  diligently  imagines  Christ.  The  picture 
must  quite  Ji/l  imagination^  or  it  is  quite  futile. 
Christ's  humility  was  animated  by  love  ;  but  un- 
less love  is  felt  to  be  more  than  a  sentiment, 
felt  to  be  a  mark  of  extraordinary  elevation  and 
force  of  character,  it  is  discredited  as  fantastic 
and  unmanly,  a  weakness  not  a  mightiness,  and 
is  looked  down  upon  as  far  less  sagacious  than 
self-seeking.  How  unlearn  all  this  t  Christly 
love  and  Christly  humility  must  be  either 
grandly  imagined,  or  completely  falsified.  Only 
the  noble  understand  noblesse  oblige.  Who  then 
will  adequately  imagine  Christ  1  Who  rise  to 
the  pitch  of  imagining  himself  to  be  honorable 
because  humble  } 


l8o  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

The  question  recurs  as  to  each  of  the  ideals 
claimed  for  Christianity.  If  any  weakling  thinks 
he  cannot  be  strong,  is  he  imagining  Christ  ? 
If,  in  a  Christian  land,  anyone  is  too  imbruted 
to  see  beauty  in  goodness,  does  he  imagine 
Christ  ?  If  an  artist  finds  the  same  charm  in  vo- 
luptuousness as  in  chastity,  has  he  ever  imagined 
Christ  ?  If,  finally,  humility  seem  base  and 
self-recollection  noble,  have  we  so  learned 
Christ  ?  To  him  who  concedes  that  the  Christian 
ideals  must  be  true,  but  has  no  '*  realizing 
sense  "  of  their  authority,  there  is  but  one  thing 
worth  saying,   ''  Will  you  imagine  Christ  ?  " 


IMAGINATION  BREEDS  ENERGY  l8l 


III 

IMAGINATION  BREEDS  ENERGY 

I.     The    Passive    and   the    Active   in 
Christianity 

Christian  ideals  impel  to  action.  The  gen- 
ius of  Christianity  is  active.  If  with  Epicure- 
ans and  Buddhists  we  believed  that  the  divine 
Being  finds  his  happiness  in  impassivity,  then 
imagination  would  hold  up  to  us  placidity  or 
even  unconsciousness  as  the  ideal  felicity  ;  and 
in  reaction  from  such  an  ideal  would  inevit- 
ably spring,  as  it  once  sprang,  the  desperate 
maxim,  "  Let  us  eat,  drink  and  be  merry,  for 
to-morrow  we  die."  But  to  imagine  Christ  is 
inspiring.  A  longing  to  do  arises,  earnest- 
ness takes  fire,  and  energy  becomes  the  note 
of  Christian  living. 

How  wide  of  the  mark  is  the  fling  that  the 
Christian  virtues   are   all  passive.     Such  a  re- 


1 82  SERVICE    TO  LIFE 

proach  is  utterly  foreign  to  the  genius  of  our 
faith.  If  the  world  were  but  a  cruel  machine, 
and  mankind  its  victim,  then  the  only  god  we 
could  feel  sure  of  would  be  some  Prince  Gau- 
tama enlightened  enough  to  submit ;  patience 
matured  into  indifference  would  be  the  ideal 
virtue,  and  a  dreamless  Nigban,  as  the  Bur- 
mans  believe,  its  complete  reward.  But  to 
Christianity  the  world  stands  in  imagination  the 
handiwork  of  a  holy,  wise  and  loving  Creator  ; 
sin  is  the  chief  of  all  evils  and  source  of  most 
evils  ;  warfare  against  sin  is  a  stern,  unrelaxing 
duty ;  love  is  the  animating  virtue  ;  a  holy,  un- 
hampered, glad  activity  the  highest  heaven. 
The  genius  of  a  religion  could  not  be  more  pas- 
sive than  that  of  Buddhism,  nor  more  active 
than  that  of  Christianity.  And  futile  the  Rit- 
schilian  attempt  to  blend  them.  But,  inasmuch 
as  against  all  odds  of  fact  the  character  of  a 
good  many  Christian  precepts  is  made  the  basis 
of  a  denial  that  Christianity  is  characteristically 
energetic,  it  falls  to  us  to  inquire  whether  a 
Christian   who    happens   to   be    energetic    has 


IMAGINATION  BREEDS  ENERGY  183 

actually  risen  superior  to  the  depressing  influ- 
ence of  the  Christian  precepts. 

It  is  true  that  the  precepts  of  the  Bible  are 
largely  negative,  but  the  religion  of  the  Bible, 
not  to  say  of  the  New  Testament  alone,  has 
never  been  negative.  Although  partly  negative 
in  form,  it  is  not  so  in  essence ;  nor  is  the  re- 
quirement of  abounding  energy  relaxed  or  ob- 
scured by  the  negative  form  of  any  among  its 
precepts,  for  such  as  attempt  to  keep  its  pre- 
cepts. A  little  attention  to  the  real  nature  of 
the  case  will  make  this  plain.  A  sin  is  no  nega- 
tion. It  comes  from  active  preference  of  one's 
own  way  to  God's  way.  Naturally  the  com- 
mandments against  sin  for  the  most  part  go 
straight  to  their  end  by  prohibiting  the  evil 
rather  than  by  requiring  the  opposite  good. 
In  the  Decalogue  every  commandment  which 
prescribed  relations  to  God  ran,  <*Thou  shalt 
not,"  except  only  the  law  of  the  Sabbath ;  and 
even  this  law,  while  positive  in  its  initial  word, 
was  negative  in  all  its  specifications.  In  like 
manner,  of  "the  second  table,"  which  dealt  with 


1 84  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

relations  among  men,  only  the  injunction  to 
honor  parents  was  positive  in  either  form  or 
content.  And  yet  it  would  be  historically  a 
reckless  suggestion  that  the  religion  of  Israel 
was  merely  negative.  Whatever  the  form  of 
its  chief  code,  and  however  preternatural  the 
submission  which  that  unhappy  race  has  had  to 
learn,  all  the  world  knows  the  Hebrew  people 
and  religion  are  assertive  and  energetic  to  the 
pitch  of  being  intolerant  and  often  intolerable. 
Besides  this,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  how  posi- 
tively Deuteronomy  sums  up  the  Godward 
duties,  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with 
all  thine  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with 
all  thy  might  ; "  while  Leviticus  sets  forth  all 
manward  duty  in  the  law,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself."  Love  is  active  enough, 
and  love  is  the  fulfilling  of  all  law. 

The  beatitudes  of  Jesus  declare  the  happiness 
of  those  who  possess  certain  virtues,  virtues,  to 
be  sure,  nearly  all  passive  or  negative.  But 
what  at  once  follows  ?  "  Ye  are  the  salt  of  the 
earth  ; "  "Ye  are  the  light  of  the  world."    Are 


IMAGINATION  BREEDS  ENERGY  1 85 

these  passive,  or  meant  to  intimate  passivity, 
—  salt  and  light  ?  Or  are  they  intended  to 
suggest  a  penetrating,  widely  diffused  and  be- 
neficent activity  ?  This  is  at  least  what  the 
company  of  disciples  turned  out  to  be.  There 
are  also  texts  in  positive  form  which  bid  us  do 
all  things  heartily,  and  when  we  owe  service,  to 
obey  even  men  as  though  we  were  serving  God. 
But  it  is  enough  to  ask  whether  Christ  is  not 
the  most  positive  and  efficient  force  that  ever 
moved  among  men.  Is  he  not  the  embodied 
law,  and  to  imagine  him  —  is  not  this  the 
sharpest  spur  to  activity } 

The  predominating  character  of  a  religion 
can  be  known  from  its  tendency.  Christians 
as  well  as  other  religionists  have  the  defects 
of  their  virtues.  Has  that  exaggerated  ten- 
dency among  Christians  ever  been  toward 
abnormal  stillness  and  contentment }  Has 
not  the  haunting  liability  for  Christians  been 
to  intense  bigotry,  to  an  energy  of  belief  which 
excludes  consideration  for  other  men's  beliefs, 
and  with   the    same  vehemence   misshapes   all 


1 86  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

practical  relations  ?  Indifference  to  dissent 
from  her  faith  and  to  interference  with  her 
aims  is  never  found  in  the  church,  except  when 
she  loses  sight  of  her  Head.  The  church  has 
ever  been  ready  to  take  up  arms  against  all 
enemies.  If  it  were  not  so,  the  skeptic  would 
be  as  placidly  neutral  toward  Christianity  as 
he  is  toward  Buddhism.  Except  for  the  energy 
of  its  convictions,  moral,  social  and  political 
evils  would  not  find  in  the  church  an  always 
organized  and  fully  armed  foe,  ready  at  a  word 
to  go  even  beyond  her  proper  sphere  and  attack 
any  wrong  however  formidable  at  any  risk 
however  great.  If  reformers  have  any  right 
to  reproach  the  church  with  lying  fast  asleep 
when  the  times  call  for  wakefulness,  she  sleeps 
on  her  arms ;  and  no  name  can  so  quickly 
waken  her  and  fill  her  with  eagerness  as  the 
name  of  him  who  "gave  himself  for  us  ...  . 
that  he  might  purify  unto  himself  a  peculiar 
people  zealous  for  good  works."  It  is  his 
voice  that  she  waits  to  hear,  and  his  form  to  see 
at  the  head  of  her  forces.    Let  her  but  see  her 


IMAGINATION  BREEDS  ENERGY  1 8/ 

Lord  and  be  sure  of  his  will,  and  what  is  there 
which  she  was  ever  too  timid  to  undertake? 
So  far  as  conversion  of  ideals  into  energy 
goes,  it  is  all  a  matter  of  imagining  Christ. 

2.    Christ  Seems  Real 

There  is  an  especial  reason  for  response 
of  energy  to  the  imagination  which  holds  Christ 
in  view.  When  romancers  attempt  to  depict 
an  inspiring  hero,  it  is  their  misfortune  to  make 
him  seem  the  less  real  the  worthier  he  is  of 
imitation.  Satan,  as  has  been  often  remarked, 
turned  out  to  be  the  hero  of  "  Paradise  Lost." 
But  not  only  does  the  good  Christian  regard  the 
object  of  his  adoring  imagination  as  real,  he  has 
an  impression  of  Christ's  reality  vivid  in  pro- 
portion to  his  impression  of  Christ's  perfections. 
It  is  only  by  ascribing  to  our  Lord  boundless 
excellence  that  we  have  any  clear  notion 
about  him.  So  soon  as  detraction  of  Christ 
begins,  his  form  becomes  shadowy  and  the 
story  of  his  life  appears  unveracious.  But  when 
we  begin  again  to  attribute  to  him  the  highest 


1 88  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

motives  and  ideal  performance,  then  the  story 
seems  true,  imagination  readily  follows  his 
steps,  and  even  reads  the  secrets  of  his  breast. 
It  is  mixture  of  motives  which  obscures  char- 
acter ;  perfect  purity  makes  it  like  the  lucent 
ether,  it  conveys  and  never  hinders  light.  If 
the  New  Testament  had  but  furnished  a  seem- 
ingly real  personage  who  embodied  all  the 
highest  ideals  of  human  nature  and  was  easy 
to  understand,  it  would  have  been  a  service  to 
morals  second  only  to  that  which  has  been 
rendered  by  the  actual  appearance  of  such  a 
being  among  men.  But  the  character  of  Christ 
is  in  so  many  ways  original  as  well  as  ideal,  that 
one  of  the  most  impressive  arguments  for  his 
historicity  and  his  essential  divinity  was  con- 
structed from  the  New  Testament's  picture  of 
his  sinlessness.  ^  The  success  of  this  argument, 
at  a  time  when  Hegelianism  had  undertaken  to 
reduce  the  image  of  Christ  to  a  mythical  per- 
sonification of  ideals,  serv^ed  to  show  how  impos- 
sible it  is  to  imagine  Christ  as  other  than  real 

1  Ullmann's  "  Sinlessness  of  Jesus.  " 


IMAGINATION  BREEDS  ENERGY  189 

It  is  easy  to  understand  that  belief  in  our 
Lord  as  real  must  far  more  powerfully  stimulate 
our  energies  than  the  liveliest  portrayal  of  an 
ideal  Master  whom  we  do  not  believe  ever 
lived.  In  fact,  imagination  could  not  be  per- 
suaded to  persist  in  its  picture,  unless  it  were 
assured  that  the  reality  is  not  to  be  outdone. 
To  imagine  Christ  looking  upon  us  while  we 
make  our  effort  to  see  him,  to  "realize"  that 
we  are  actually  in  his  company,  and  aided  by 
him  in  some  way  when  we  strive  to  do  our 
duty,  to  feel  sure  that  we  shall  see  him  face  to 
face,  and  fully  know  him  "  even  as  we  are  fully 
known,"  these  are  helps  which  every  thoughtful 
mind  can  appreciate,  they  are  spurs  with  which 
Christianity  alone  drives  energy  toward  the 
worthiest  goal.  It  is  by  no  means  denied  that 
other  religions  evoke  such  energy  as  to  make  us 
look  on  almost  with  stupefaction.  In  our  own 
day  the  followers  of  a  Mohammedan  fanatic  in 
the  Soudan  have  exhibited  over  and  again  the 
daring  with  which  hope  of  Paradise  inspired  the 
immediate    adherents   of    Mohammed   himself. 


190  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

But  what  Moslem  of  them  all,  if  there  was  one 
who  secretly  contemned  Paradise  as  a  myth, 
ever  flung  himself  upon  the  Infidel  and  willingly 
died  in  battle  in  order  to  win  a  place  in  the 
happy  land  of  Nowhere  ?  Or  what  so-called 
Christian  could  be  brought  to  sacrifice  this 
world's  good  that  he  might  lay  up  treasure  in  a 
city  which  was  without  foundations,  and  which 
was  not  builded  and  made  by  God  ? 

3.    The    Long    Look    Ahead 

At  this  point  the  objection  is  raised  that  the 
imagination  of  future  rewards  and  penalties, 
however  certain  they  may  be,  is  essentially 
selfish,  and  debasing  to  virtue.  The  truly 
righteous  man,  it  is  insisted,  does  right  only 
for  right's  sake.  The  objection  is  widely  cur- 
rent even  among  Christians  who  disrelish  the 
campaigning  of  the  old  evangelists ;  but  it  had 
its  origin  with  those  who  rejected  Christianity 
as  a  faith  and  desired  to  lower  its  credit  as  a 
morality. 

If  things  so  serious  could  be  diverting,  one 


IMAGINATION  BREEDS  ENERGY  191 

might  indulge  a  quiet  laugh  to  find  modern 
skepticism  and  light-hearted  theology  so  squarely 
at  one  with  the  extremest  teachings  of  that 
gentle  soul  and  grim  theologian,  Dr.  Samuel 
Hopkins  of  Newport,  whose  memory  is  kept 
green  by  Mrs.  Stowe's  charming  novel,  "The 
Minister's  Wooing."  This  stout  old  philanthro- 
pist and  Calvinist  insisted  that  every  man  should 
be  willing  to  be  damned  for  the  glory  of  God : 
the  impenitent  because  they  deserve  it,  the 
regenerate  because  '*  disinterested  benevolence  " 
ought  to  be  the  law  of  their  lives.  But  there 
is  a  difference.  Hopkins  made  the  appalling 
demand  because  he  believed  in  hell  and  heaven, 
and  for  one  to  content  himself  with  whichever 
God  might  appoint  was  the  utmost  stretch  of 
submission  to  God  and  devotion  to  men ;  while 
the  modern  skeptic  and  half  skeptic  insist  on 
men's  keeping  the  next  life  out  of  the  reckon- 
ing, only  because  they  cannot  credit  this  life 
with  so  tremendous  issues  in  that  life.  It 
seems  but  justice  to  believe  that,  if  they  ac- 
cepted    the    traditional    doctrine    about    these 


192  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

matters,  they  would  hardly  be  so  preposterous 
as  to  urge  that  to  let  this  brief  life  be  ruled 
by  the  interests  of  an  eternal  existence  is  un- 
becoming selfishness,  instead  of  the  highest 
reasonableness.  Why,  it  will  be  found  that  a 
good  proportion  of  these  pleaders  for  an  unselfish 
forgetting  of  heaven  and  hell  do  themselves  ex- 
plain virtue  as  at  bottom  nothing  but  prudence 
getting  to  think  of  itself  as  morality.  Surely, 
it  must  be  an  especially  bitter  enmity  to  old 
beliefs  which  makes  them  so  inconsistent  as  to 
rate  a  lively  imagination  of  our  future  state  at 
all  below  the  topmost  prudence  and  virtue. 

Indeed,  it  is  a  kindly  habit  of  mind  and  heart, 
as  general  as  any  other  among  these  thinkers 
and  teachers,  to  be  particularly  interested 
in  behalf  of  those  whose  poverty  is  at 
once  a  penalty  and  a  source  of  vice.  When 
they  see  how  the  "  submerged  tenth  "  are  living, 
who  can  outdo  the  eagerness  with  which  they 
urge  upon  the  reason  and  the  imagination  of 
their  wards  the  duty  of  thrift  and  of  forethought 
for  ''a  rainy  day .^"      Does,  then,  circumspection 


IMAGINATION  BREEDS  ENERGY  1 93 

lie  at  the  basis  of  all  decency  in  this  life,  and 
become  at  once  degrading  selfishness  when  it 
looks  toward  the  coming  life  ?  In  what  single 
particular  does  vivid  imagination  of  eternity 
bear  the  character  of  selfishness  ?  Is  not  self- 
ishness an  undue  self-love  ?  But  who  is  the 
fantastic  moralist  that  forbids  us  to  love  our- 
selves at  all?  Is  not  selfishness  a  disregard 
of  other  men  ?  But  in  what  smallest  particular 
does  imagination  overlook  other  men's  concerns 
when  it  keeps  one's  own  future  concerns  in 
view  ?  Did  not  Paul,  at  least,  say  with  perfect 
candor  and  propriety  that  "  knowing  the  terrors 
of  the  Lord  we  persuade  men  ?  "  Or  when  did 
any  Christian  make  his  own  eternal  interests 
secure  without  promptly  showing  an  eagerness 
which,  so  long  as  he  kept  eternity  in  mind, 
amounted  to  a  passion  for  assuring  these  same 
interests  in  behalf  of  his  friends  and  neighbors  ? 
It  is  .this  extremity  of  concern  for  others  which 
so  often  takes  no  account  of  social  convention- 
alities, and  drives  its  well-meaning  work  with  a 
tactlessness  hard  to  profit  by  or  to  bear  with ; 


94 


SERVICE    TO  LIFE 


but  these  pious  souls  will  still  go  on  undis- 
couraged,  and  will  continue  to  show  the  same 
energy  so  long  as  their  imagination  is  busied 
with  the  same  overwhelming  theme. 

It  is,  then,  no  unworthy  vigor  of  self-seeking 
with  which  imagination  inspires  him  who  be- 
lieves in  future  states  of  misery  and  blessedness. 
But  this  is  the  very  least  that  can  be  said  for 
the  ethical  value  of  a  long  and  a  persistent  look 
ahead.  Practically  the  interests  of  ethics  are 
bound  up  in  our  estimate  of  consequences.  It 
is  a  law  alike  of  the  vulgar  mind  and  the  most 
enlightened  to  estimate  the  importance  of  moral 
action  as  we  estimate  that  of  physical  action  ; 
namely,  by  its  results.  To  the  physicist  energy 
is  that  which  *'  works."  The  resultant  work  is 
the  precise  measure  of  the  energ)'.  In  morals 
no  other  measure  could  be  rationally  held.  Con- 
sequences are  the  standard  of  conduct.  These 
consequences  are  within  the  man  and  without 
him.  An  evil  deed  makes  him  more  evil,  as 
much  more  evil  as  the  deed  is,  and  impairs  his 
relations    to   an   equal    degree.     A   good   deed 


IMAGINATION  BREEDS  ENERGY  I95 

does  his  character  as  much  good,  and  propor- 
tionately improves   all  his  moral  relations.     It 
must  be  so,  it  ought  to  be  so,  and  it  is  felt  to  be 
so.     When  anyone  begins  to  doubt  the  gravity 
of  the  penahies  which  his  sins  incur,  he  will 
presently  doubt  the  gravity  of  the   sins ;    and 
when  the  heinousness  of  sin  is  lessened  in  our 
eyes,  the  worth  of  holiness  goes  down  at  the 
same   rate.     "The  knowledge   of   opposites   is 
one."     Goodness  is  no  more  than  the  converse 
of   badness.     The  goodness  is  worth  no  more 
than   the    reward  it   wins,   the   badness   is   no 
worse  than  the  penalty  it  incurs.     Of   course 
this  estimate  of  consequences  refers  to  all  sorts 
of    consequences,    not    those   alone   which   are 
physical ;   but  neither  does  it  leave  out  of  ac- 
count any  physical  results  which  may  suitably 
follow.     To  object,  then,  to  the   energy  of  in- 
terest  which    imagination   takes  in  the    future 
life  is  practically  a  fantastic  mistake  which  no 
helper  of  his  fellow  men  ought  to  be  capable  of 
falling  into  ;   while  theoretically  its    inconsider- 
ateness  amounts  almost  to  levity. 


196  SERVICE    TO  LIFE 

It  cannot  however  be  denied  that  modern 
ways  of  viewing  this  solemn  matter  are  more 
spiritual,  and  so  far  are  worthier,  than  the  ways 
of  even  half  a  century  ago.  If  imagination  is 
to  anticipate  the  physical  conditions  of  the 
future  life,  she  will  not  now  draw  her  repre- 
sentations with  so  confident  a  touch.  The 
physical  good  or  ill  which  belongs  to  the  final 
estate  must  correspond  to  the  nature  of  the 
Organism  which  the  soul  is  hereafter  to  occupy 
and  employ.  He  who  believes  that  man  is  dual 
and  will  need  a  spiritual  body  for  his  complete- 
ness, if  not  for  consciousness,  must  expect  to 
find  some  suitable  home  for  that  spiritual  body. 
But  how  can  imagination  picture  that  home 
without  some  knowledge  of  its  inhabitant,  the 
spiritual  body }  And  if  any  are  to  be  wretched 
in  the  world  to  come,  the  soul  has  not  so  un- 
important a  relation  to  their  bodies  as  not 
imaginably  to  involve  the  body  in  the  ills  it 
suffers.  But  here,  too,  the  admission  of  such 
a  possibility  as  physical  evil  in  the  next  life 
leaves  the  imagination  without  any  clue  to  the 


IMAGINATION  BREEDS  ENERGY  I97 

nature  of  that  evil,  because  we  have  no  clue  to 
the  nature  and  liabilities  of  the  bodies  which 
the  wicked  are  to  receive  in  the  resurrection. 
Modern  thought  wisely  turns  from  specula- 
tion on  the  physical  characteristics  of  the 
future  life  to  the  moral  and  spiritual  certainties 
of  that  life.  And,  of  these,  the  one  which 
promises  the  most  happiness,  and  at  the  same 
time  precludes  all  debasing  of  the  prospect 
through  making  it  one  of  pleasure  alone,  is  the 
certainty  that  Christ  is  the  light  of  that  true 
temple,  the  dear  companion  of  that  true  home. 
The  problem  of  awaking  energy  is  the  problem 
once  more  of  imagining  Christ.  The  holiest 
aspirations  are  assured  that  to  see  Christ  as 
he  is  must  make  us  become  like  him.  The 
most  cautious  and  least  enthusiastic  of  those 
who  fear  that  anticipations  of  pleasure  will 
hurt  the  soul,  must  feel  safe  in  looking  forward 
to  intimacy  with  Christ.  It  was  Christ  him- 
self who  bade  us  lay  up  treasures  above,  and 
it  cannot  be  that  he  unwarily  gave  advice 
which    exposed    his    disciples    to    degradation. 


1 93  SEkVICE   TO  LIFE 

Of  this  we  have  complete  certification  in  the 
fact  that  he  said,  '*  I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for 
you.  And  if  I  go  and  prepare  a  place  for 
you,  I  am  coming  again,  and  will  take  you  to 
myself,  that  where  I  am  ye  may  be  also." 
Even  if  it  were  not  well  for  us  to  think  of  the 
place  he  went  to  prepare,  it  must  be  the  best 
possible  for  us  to  imagine  being  with  him  in 
that  place.  Our  modern  thought,  which  seeks 
to  substitute  spiritual  realities  for  crass  visions 
of  physical  good  and  ill,  can  ask  no  fuller 
answer  to  its  exacting  tests  than  it  finds  in  the 
supreme  good  of  nearness  to  Christ.  It  need 
be  no  further  argued  that  if  what  Christ  is, 
what  he  is  to  us,  and  what  he  is  to  be  to  us, 
does  not  stir  in  us  the  utmost  spiritual  energy, 
it  is  because  we  do  not  imagine  him  as  real,  but 
we  let  the  announcement  pass  by  without  caring 
to  keep  a  picture  of  the  fact  before  our  minds. 
Beyond  all  other  explanations  of  sloth  in  the 
lives  of  Christians  none  is  so  complete  as  that 
they  will  not  imagine  Christ.  The  religious 
use  of  imagination  is  the  element  in  faith  which 


IMAGIK'ATION  BREEDS  ENERGY  199 

they  need  more  even  than  they  need  mcrease 
of  trust.  It  is  at  bottom  a  mental  indolence 
which  turns  their  hearts  cold  toward  their 
Lord,  and  leaves  their  lives  inert  and  useless. 
If  the  child  of  God  walks  as  his  Father  would 
have  him,  it  is  because  he  walks  by  imagination, 
not  by  sight. 


200  SERyiCE   TO  UFB 


IV 

IMAGINATION  ENLISTS  PERSEVERANCE 

I.    We  also  Can 

A  MAN  of  ideals  without  perseverance  does 
not  know  his  own  mind.  A  man  who  per- 
severes in  ideals  only  is  but  a  sentimentalist,  a 
voluptuary  of  dreams.  But  perhaps  the  most 
futile  of  mortals  is  one  who  is  susceptible  to 
ideals  and  can  make  a  show  of  energy,  yet  lacks 
persistence  ;  for  now  and  then  he  tries,  and  is 
bound  to  fail.  Of  all  reputable  but  ineffectual 
folk  this  is  perhaps  the  commonest  kind.  There 
are  few  indeed  who  have  no  abiding  desires  ; 
of  mere  dreamers  there  are  not  so  very  many ; 
but  fruitless  spurts  of  energy  are  discouragingly 
common.  Perseverance  seems  the  impossibility; 
that  is,  perseverance  in  the  energetic  pursuit  of 
high    designs.      There   is  no  end   of    obstinate 


m AGINATION  ENLISTS  PERSEVERANCE    201 

people,  people  bent  on  some  commonplace 
object,  or  stubborn  in  resistance  of  what  they 
happen  to  dislike.  Yet  the  impossible  is  the 
problem  for  religion.  Moral  impossibilities 
brought  Christ  down.  And  to  imagination 
either  of  good  or  bad  the  impossible  becomes 
the  easy.  In  the  extremity  to  which  vacilla- 
tion reduces  the  highest  interests  of  mankind 
the  religious  use  of  imagination  finds  its  crown- 
ing opportunity.  This  crucial  test  can  be  met 
with  supreme  success.  He  that  looks  unto 
Jesus  as  the  author  and  finisher  of  faith,  will 
surely  run  with  patience  the  race  set  before 
him.  The  point  is  of  unsurpassed  importance, 
and  the  point  can  be  made.  How  Christian 
imagination  can  come  to  the  support  of  Chris- 
tian perseverance  is  well  worth  asking. 

Great  successes  awaken  emulation,  that  is, 
ambition  and  assurance.  This  is  preeminently 
the  case  with  successes  of  the  moral  and 
spiritual  order.  We  are  rarely  moved  to  be- 
come   a    little    better    from    seeing   some   one 


202  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

who  is  only  a  little  better  than  ourselves ; 
but  the  motor  influence  of  high  achievement 
is  felt  whatever  there  is  to  achieve.  Rare 
physical  prowess,  even,  is  as  likely  to  inspire 
emulation  as  discouragement.  When  a  famous 
musician  comes,  the  master,  let  us  say,  of  an 
instrument  which  many  people  know  how  to 
use,  who  is  most  thrilled  by  his  performance  ? 
Allowing  for  a  few  exceptions,  it  will  be  those, 
of  course,  who  themselves  play  on  the  same 
instrument.  Who  should  most  appreciate  mas- 
terpieces of  sculpture  and  painting }  Without 
doubt  those  who  dabble  in  wet  clay,  or  are 
adepts  in  the  mystery  of  palette  and  brush. 
Or  when  a  great  orator  moves  his  thousands, 
which  of  the  throng  must  exult  most  in  the 
godlike  gift  of  eloquence .?  Surely  the  man 
whose  business  is  to  speak  in  public.  But 
why  so  ?  Someone  will  think  it  is  because 
every  man  rates  most  highly  successes  in  his 
own  line.  This  is  a  partial  account,  providing 
the  spectator  can  witness  successes  in  his  own 
line  without  feeling  jealousy.     Another  will  ex- 


IMAGINATION  ENLISTS  PERSEVERANCE    203 

plain  that  everyone  should  understand  best  the 
secrets  of  his  own  craft,  and  notice  "points" 
in  the  performance  which  all  but  adepts  miss. 
True,  too,  if  we  allow  for  the  special  charm  of 
masterfulness  in  the  estimation  of  a  critic  or 
connoisseur  who  makes  it  his  business  to  com- 
prehend the  business  of  other  men.  But  the 
artist  or  professional  man  who  witnesses  a 
signal  achievement  in  his  own  calling  feels 
a  joy  which  a  critic  cannot  share,  at  least  is 
not  entitled  to ;  and  this  is  the  joy  of  saying 
to  himself,  as  he  looks  on,  "  I,  too,  can  do  this." 
And  so  in  some  increased  measure  he  can,  if 
he  keeps  the  consummate  achievement  always 
before  the  mind's  eye.  It  is  thus  that  the 
greatest  masters  develop  their  powers.  No 
musical  composer,  however  original  and  lofty 
his  genius,  fails  to  train  his  gifts  by  close  study 
of  Bach  and  Mozart,  of  Beethoven  and  Schu- 
mann, and  now  of  Berlioz  and  Wagner.  The 
dispersion  of  Greek  literature  and  discovery 
of  Greek  statuary  have  large  share  in  the 
credit  of  modern  literary  and  plastic  art.     Italy 


204  SERl^ICE   TO  LIFE 

in  its  turn  has  been  thronged  for  generations 
by  artists  who  spare  no  pains  to  learn  how  her 
masters  painted,  as  well  as  to  catch  the  inspira- 
tion of  their  lofty  spirit.  And  if  orators  do 
not  study  the  foremost  exemplars  of  their  sub- 
lime art,  it  is  because  these  are  not  at  hand  to 
be  studied.  The  orator,  however,  who  sets  out 
to  make  the  most  of  himself,  does  not  fail  to 
find  out  all  he  can  about  them  and  to  emulate 
their  training,  even  to  trying  his  voice,  like 
Demosthenes,  against  the  tumult  of  waves,  or, 
like  Clay  and  Beecher,  astonishing  hills  and 
fields  with  his  declamation.  In  all  these  cases 
industry  and  endurance  are  stimulated  by  the 
hope  of  doing  finally  what  the  greatest  models 
have  done.  When  every  other  stimulus  fails 
as  a  spur  to  toil,  self-confidence  can  always  be 
renewed  by  imagination  of  the  very  highest 
which  has  been  achieved,  and  gains  little  by 
weighing  the  worth  of  lesser  successes. 

It  is  a  pitch  of  audacity  from  which  faith 
never  shrinks,  when  faith  is  a  religious  use  of 
the  imagination.     The  precepts  of  the  Teacher 


IMAGINATION  ENLISTS  PERSE  ITERANCE    205 

are  not  encouraging ;  nor  is  his  example,  when 
his  example  is  to  us  merely  an  enacted  precept, 
that  is,  when  we  look  at  what  he  is  doing, 
rather  than  at  him.  A  veteran  who  had  endured 
hardness  as  a  good  soldier,  still  felt  himself  to 
be  in  the  thick  of  the  fight.  He  hungered  and 
thirsted  after  righteousness,  and  his  friends 
thought  he  had  been  wellnigh  filled.  Not  so  he. 
When  he  read  the  Beatitudes,  he  said,  it  threw 
him  almost  into  despair,  and  again  and  again 
he  fell  upon  his  knees  and  implored  God  to 
teach  him  how  he  might  be  what  Christ  thus 
required.  But  I  never  heard  that  the  face  of 
his  Master  threw  him  into  despair.  The  pre- 
cept reminds  us  how  we  have  failed  ;  the  vision 
of  Christ  shows  us  what  it  is  to  succeed.  The 
best  of  it  is  that  to  see  Christ  is  to  see  our 
idealized  selves  ;  and  to  see  ourselves  Christlike, 
even  though  it  be  only  in  imagination,  cannot 
fail  to  revive  and  sustain  our  energies  at  their 
best.  If  anyone  has  not  found  his  strength  re- 
newed by  imagining  Christ,  he  has  not  veritably 
imagined  Christ.     Imagination    in  viewing  our 


206  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

Lord  supports  perseverance  by  persuading  as 
that  the  highest  attainments  are  suitable  and 
possible  for  ourselves. 

2.    And  Must 

To  imagine  Christ  ensures  untiring  effort  in 
another  way  very  characteristic  of  Christianity  : 
when  hope  notifies  us  that  the  highest  ideal  can 
be  realized,  conscience  insists  that  we  must 
realize  it.  Our  highest  privileges  are  inter- 
preted by  Christianity  as  duties.  It  is  the 
equally  true  counterpart  of  this  fact,  that  our 
most  exacting  duties  are  our  highest  privileges. 
Nothing  can  be  a  privilege  except  that  which  is 
fit  for  us ;  and  it  is  our  bounden  duty  to  be  the 
best  that  we  are  fitted  to  be.  This  is  un- 
doubtedly an  extreme  view  of  duty  and  of 
privilege  too.  The  average  Christian  has  a 
feeling  that,  while  he  ought  not  to  do  anything 
forbidden,  and  is  bound  to  do  everything  ex- 
pressly required,  there  is  a  wide  range  of  good- 
ness which  one  can  make  his  own  greatly  to  his 
praise,  because  he  may  neglect  it  without  blame. 


IMAGINATION  ENLISTS  PERSEl/ERANCE     20/ 

Protestants  do  not  formally  distinguish  between 
the    commands   and    the    counsels    of    Christ. 
Their  theory  of  virtue  has  no  place  for  works 
of  supererogation.     They    do    not    dream   that 
voluntary  celibacy,  poverty,  or  obedience   to  a 
religious  superior  are  especial  ways  of  acquiring 
merit  in  the    sight  of    God.     They   look  upon 
their  possessions  as  their  own  either  to  keep  or 
to   give.     They    cite  convincing    Scripture   for 
this.     They  leave  toil  for  the  heathen  abroad  or 
at  home  to  men  and  women  mystically  "called." 
They  even    count  it  presumption  for  a   young 
man  to  ask  for  a  place  in  the  Christian  ministry, 
if  led  only  by  such  views  of  duty  as  ought  to 
guide  any  man  in  deciding  for  any  other  voca- 
tion.   And,  so,  too  many   Protestants  have  in- 
consistently settled  down  to  views  of  duty  which 
they   formally    repudiate.     They    do   not    hold 
themselves    with    set    purpose   to    the   duty  of 
getting  the   best  net    result    from   life.     Their 
contented  average  of  moral  efficiency  and  spirit- 
ual fertility  is  obviously  enough  due  to  keeping 
only  an  average  of  excellence  before  the  mind's 


2o8  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

eye.  But  to  imagine  Christ  is  to  feel  called  to 
higher  things,  and  to  feel  that  his  call  cannot  be 
blamelessly  disregarded. 

In  lands  ruled  by  monarch s  a  royal  invitation 
is  equivalent  to  a  royal  command,  and  we  repub- 
licans read  now  and  then  with  bewilderment 
that  the  king  has  ordered  some  favored  subject 
to  come  to  the  palace  and  dine.  An  old-time 
illustration  is  perhaps  not  too  familiar  to  bear 
recounting  again.  A  Scotch  Earl  of  Stair  late 
in  the  seventeenth  century  enjoyed  the  reputa- 
tion of  being  the  finest  gentleman  in  Europe. 
Louis  XIV.,  whose  court  the  earl  visited  on 
some  errand  of  diplomacy,  contrived  a  test  of 
his  right  to  this  high  repute.  The  Grand 
Monarque  invited  the  Scotch  noble  to  drive  with 
him ;  and  when  they  came  to  the  royal  coach 
waved  his  hand  for  the  earl  to  step  first  into  the 
coach.  To  do  so  was  to  break  a  rigid  law  of 
courtly  etiquette,  and  to  break  it  in  dealing  with 
the  statehest  king  in  Europe.  But  the  earl 
obeyed.  He  stepped  into  the  coach  before  the 
king ;  for  he  knew  the  king's  invitation  viras  the 


IMAGINATION  ENLISTS  PERSEVERANCE    209 

king's  command,  and  he  held  the  king's  com- 
mand superior  to  all  the  rules  of  the  court. 
And  so  Louis  was  satisfied  that  the  Earl  of  Stair 
was  the  finest  gentleman  in  Europe.  The 
application  is  plain. 

But  the  regal  way  of  showing  courtesy  has  its 
inconveniences  for  all  concerned.  When  such 
invitations  happen  to  be  irksome  they  must  be 
accepted  as  though  welcome  ;  and  the  king  can- 
not know  whether  the  acceptance  signifies  grate- 
ful enjoyment  or  sullen  submission.  It  has  been 
somewhere  related  that,  among  the  ladies  in 
waiting  of  Queen  Victoria,  one  who  had  lately 
come  from  the  provinces  to  join  the  queen's 
household,  was  owner  of  a  beautiful  and  culti- 
vated voice.  Her  majesty  loves  music,  and  to 
please  herself  as  well  as  to  show  a  courtesy  to 
her  attendant,  invited  the  lady  to  sing.  But  to 
the  dismay  of  everyone  present,  the  lady,  new 
to  courts  and  overpowered  by  diffidence,  stam- 
mered an  excuse.  Whereupon  her  majesty 
drew  herself  up  with  the  air  of  authority  which 
all    accounts  accord    to    her,  and    said,  "  Sing, 


210  SERVICE    TO  LIFE 

Madame."  And  the  poor  woman  had  to  try. 
When  your  pet  canary  does  not  feel  Hke  singing, 
you  may  whistle  and  chirrup,  but  you  will  gain 
only  a  chirrup  in  return  to  show  that  your  atten- 
tion is  appreciated.  How  can  one  make  music 
when  his  harp  is  on  the  willow,  and  his  artist 
soul  sunk  in  the  artist  sleep  of  apathy  ?  A 
semi-stupor  is  ever  threatening  to  settle  upon 
spirits  ordinarily  characterized  by  moral  inten- 
sity. Spiritual  fervors  and  raptures  are  often 
paid  for  in  reactions  of  chill  and  heaviness. 
The  invitation  to  be  glad  would  seem  in  such 
moods  a  mockery,  and  the  duty  of  rejoicing 
could  be  imposed  only  as  a  cruel  hardship. 
Whatever  force  men  may  owe  to  alert  and 
hopeful  spirits,  these  sensitive  souls  are  subject 
to  depressions  which  amount  to  a  disability. 
But  for  them  and  for  commonplace  tempera- 
ments there  is  a  sufficient  remedy  in  opening 
the  eyes  to  the  Master.  No  one  can  be  de- 
pressed in  his  company ;  no  one  can  lose 
courage  at  his  side.  And  enduring  energy  to 
obey  our  King's  invitation  is  given   to  all  those 


IMAGINATION  ENLISTS  PERSEVERANCE    211 

who  hear  the  invitation  from  the  King's  own 
lips.  He  in  turn  has  the  privilege  in  this  case 
of  knowing  that  his  overture  is  welcomed  with 
alacrity.  If  his  invitation  is  a  command,  his 
command  is  rated  a  privilege.  Such  a  fact 
leads  us  to  notice  a  third  particular  in  which 
religious  imagination  provides  for  the  noble  grace 
of  steadfastness,  the  too  rare  grace  of  unflagging 
perseverance. 

3.    And  would  Like  to 

Imagination  wins  us  to  persistence  not  chiefly 
by  assuring  us  that  Christ  can  make  us  strong, 
nor  even  by  pressing  our  privileges  upon  con- 
science. It  makes  us  persevere  through  relish 
of  the  objects  which  it  offers.  This  power  it 
owes  to  the  growing  attractiveness  of  true  re- 
ligion for  the  truly  religious.  Religion  is  dull  to 
those  alone  who  pay  little  regard  to  it.  \\^hen 
it  secures  a  large  part  of  our  time  and  thought 
it  becomes  intensely  interesting.  They  weary 
of  it  who  have  least  to  do  with  it,  while  intimate 
familiarity  makes  it  a  source  of  refreshment  and 


212  SERVICE  TO  LIFE 

delight.  If  there  were  no  hope  of  securing  to 
religion  its  due  except  through  stiffening  men's 
wills  into  purpose  to  serve  God  up  to  the  limit 
of  obligation,  the  hope  of  unrelaxing  perse- 
verance would  be  more  futile  than  it  has  actually 
proved.  It  seems  an  unworthy  measure  of  a 
religion's  success,  but  the  rule  is  that  men  will 
give  to  a  religion  only  that  degree  of  attention 
which  they  can  enjoy.  If  they  give  it  any  more 
than  this,  it  is  because  they  are  afraid  to  give 
any  less.  But  who  is  there  that  will  not  follow 
with  unwearying  steadiness  an  object  which  he 
eagerly  longs  for }  Or  who  will  not  keep 
on  doing  that  which  he  does  with  unfailing 
relish  ?  Children  are  capable  of  such  reso- 
luteness as  this,  to  the  great  annoyance  of 
those  who  are  responsible  for  them.  It  is  mere 
stubbornness,  and  children  are  sometimes  the 
more  perversely  stubborn  the  smaller  and  less 
reasonable  they  are.  You  may  hear  a  mother 
complaining,  "  This  child  of  mine  will  tease,  and 
tease,  until  she  wears  me  out,  and  I  have  to  say 
Yes.     Sometimes  I  am   alarmed  at    her  willful- 


IMAGINATION  ENLISTS  PERSEVERANCE    213 

ness,  and  determine  to  make  one  more  effort  to 
break  it  down.  And  how  do  I  succeed  ?  Not 
at  all.  I  fear  she  will  keep  on  insisting  on 
whatever  she  likes  until  she  is  a  spoiled  girl." 
I  never  yet  heard  a  woman  applaud  the  resolute 
soul  of  a  child  which  persisted  in  nagging  its 
mother  until  it  got  whatever  it  pleased.  And  I 
risk  this  homely  illustration  in  the  hope  that  it 
will  make  plainer  than  a  more  stately  one  could 
that  even  a  religion  may  secure  unflagging  fidel- 
ity from  ordinary  people  if  it  has  capacity  to 
grow  more  attractive  the  more  familiar  it  grows. 
Any  normal  taste  can  be  cultivated  until  it 
discriminates  with  vehemence  between  the  bet- 
ter and  the  worse.  A  boy  will  stand  before  a 
street  organ  as  long  as  it  remains  to  play,  or  will 
follow  a  military  band  as  far  as  he  dares  ;  but 
after  musical  taste  has  been  carefully  cultivated 
it  is  a  rarely  good  street  "band  which  does  not 
smite  the  ear  as  with  a  blow.  Yet  this  suscep- 
tibility to  pain  is  also  capability  of  delight  in 
symphony  and  oratorio.  And  so  with  painting. 
What  quiet   child   in  his  tender  years  has  not 


214  SERVICE   TO  LIFE 

seized  upon  a  rainy  day  to  smear  the  pictures  in 
his  booic  with  all  the  colors  which  he  likes  best  ? 
Men's  faces  shall  be  stained  a  pale  yellow  or  a 
deep  orange  with  that  wonderful  gamboge ; 
their  classic  togas  or  Indian  blankets  shall  be 
done  up  in  shining  green  or  vermilion,  and  every 
gaudy  discord  worked  out  according  to  the 
native  depravity  of  the  infant  taste  in  colors. 
But  after  one  has  studied  painting  the  distress 
which  crudities  in  color,  drawing  or  design  in- 
flict is  but  a  counterpart  of  the  enjoyment 
which  good  art  affords.  Even  the  taste  which 
resides  in  the  palate  can  be  refined  into  fastidi- 
ousness, and  thus  develop  an  equal  capacity  for 
disgust  and  gustatory  enjoyment.  Conscience 
is  credited  only  with  judicial  functions,  but  it  is 
also  an  organ  of  taste.  Its  business  may  seem 
to  keep  a  man  wretched,  and  rarely  to  make 
amends  by  approving  this  act  or  that.  But  con- 
science, in  the  popular  meaning  of  the  term, 
may  be  indulged  in  its  own  imaginings.  The 
delight  with  which  one  may  image  himself  as 
ideally  good  in  the  particulars  which  he  most 


I M /I  G  IK  AT  ION  ENLISTS  PERSEyERANCE    215 

honors,  is  as  lively  and  elevated  a  delight  as 
imagination  can  furnish.  Such  self-imaging 
awakens  an  inappeasable  appetite,  what  Jesus 
called  a  ''  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness." 
And  happy,  said  he,  is  that  man.  Thus  con- 
science, becoming  a  source  of  moral  enjoyment, 
provides  for  perseverance,  not  by  the  sternness 
of  her  demands  nor  by  sore  prodding  of  sensi- 
tive spirits,  but  through  the  sheer  beauty  of  her 
day-dreams. 

No  religion  can  sustain  the  devotion  of  its 
follower  unless  he  lays  its  objects  to  heart.  If 
it  would  warn  him  against  offending  the  gods, 
the  devotee  must  be  taught  thoroughly  to  dread 
their  fury,  and  imagination  must  keep  his  appre- 
hensions alive  ;  other^vise  the  penalties  of 
another  world  serve  to  point  a  jest  or  supply  a 
particularly  coarse  style  of  profane  swearing. 
If  it  opens  alluring  prospects  of  delight,  far,  it 
may  be,  below  the  spiritual  joys  of  the  Chris- 
tian's heaven,  imagination  will  need  to  draw 
the  curtain  often  from  the  celestial  scene,  or 
Paradise    will    soon    be    disregarded,  and    then 


2l6  SERVICE    TO  LIFE 

despised.  Much  more  when  the  aims  of  rehgion 
are  high  is  it  needful  to  keep  the  sensibiHties 
alive  ;  for  with  habitual  inactivity  an  unconquer- 
able dullness  steals  over  them,  and  they  finally 
seem  atrophied,  as  Darwin  confessed  had  oc- 
curred to  his  own  appreciation  of  poetry  and 
religion.  But  if  familiar  vision  of  God  teaches 
us  to  feel  his  reality  and  long  to  please  him, 
then  all  that  faithfulness  can  do  will  be  done, 
and  patience,  which  is  the  passive  form  of  per- 
severance, will  "have  her  perfect  work."  To 
walk  by  imagination,  not  by  sight,  is  to  walk 
with  God. 


CONCLUSIONS  217 


CONCLUSIONS 
I.    Imagination  and  Unity  of  the  Faith 

The  aim  of  these  pages  has  been  essentially 
historical.  This  aim  has  been  to  show  that  the 
imagination  has  always  been  sufficiently  at  the 
service  of  religion  to  account  for  the  persistence 
among  Christians  of  certain  elevated  beliefs, 
but  not  sufficiently  to  provide  for  an  average  of 
piety  and  virtue  proportionate  to  the  elevation 
of  those  beliefs. 

As  to  the  beliefs  the  significant  facts  are : 
first,  that  in  each  instance  these  characteristi- 
cally Christian  beliefs  strike  the  imagination. 
Secondly,  ideas  which  imagination  keeps  in  full 
view  enjoy  in  this  w^ay  quite  exclusively  the 
advantage,  or  incur  the  disadvantage,  of  being 
put  to  the  test  of  experience.  Thirdly,  having 
been  so  tried  and  attested  by  all  the  Christian 
centuries,  these  salient,  imaginable,  and  charac- 


2l8  SERVICE    TO  LIFE 

teristically  Christian  ideas  are  for  substance 
steadily  held  by  the  church  with  all  the  depth 
and  tenacity  of  conviction  which  experience 
alone  can  afford.  It  is  always  possible  that 
learned  skeptics  may  raise  against  the  Bible 
questions  which  unlearned  Christians  are  quite 
unable  to  answer ;  but  when  did  Skepticism 
ever  detach  from  the  Book  the  faith  of  a  man, 
whatever  his  critical  theories  might  be,  whose 
experience  had  proved  its  teachings  to  be  true  ? 
Truth  which  a  man  has  experienced  he  knows 
more  thoroughly  than  he  knows  anything  else, 
or  than  he  can  know  this  same  truth  in  any 
other  way.  The  Christian  might  conceivably 
doubt  for  a  time  the  authority  of  the  Bible,  but 
X  he  can  never  doubt  the  authority  of  his  experi- 
ence. He  needs  only  to  know  what  his  ex- 
perience teaches.  He  may  be  hard  bestead  by 
arguments  against  the  Book,  which  he  does  not 
know  how  to  answer  ;  but  he  can  always  say, 
in  the  quaint  language  of  old  time  prayer  meet- 
ings, "I  have  found  that  there  is  a  reality  in 
religion." 


CONCLUSIONS  219 

Supported  by  this  unbroken  attestation  to 
the  essential  Christian  behefs,  no  one  should 
fear  lest  Christianity  may  fail  to  win  the  faith 
of  mankind,  or  lest  the  integrity  of  its  teachings 
be  permanently  impaired.  We  all  look  for 
advance  in  knowledge  of  Christian  truth,  and 
every  student  may  please  himself  with  expecting 
that  this  advance  will  be  mainly  a  recognition  of 
the  novelty,  or  supposed  novelty,  which  delights 
his  own  fancy;  but  that  advance  has  come  to 
a  stand  the  conservative  should  be  the  last  to 
imagine,  for  experience  promises  new  views  of 
truth  as  confidently  as  it  endorses  old  views. 
Progress  will  still  go  on,  and  yet  the  historic 
faith  will  endure.^  In  the  to/iu  boJui  of  colliding 
opinions  he  who  has  experiential  knowledge  of 
Christ  and  who  keeps  that  strong  and  radiant 
figure  always  before  his  eyes,  may  wait  serenely 
to  hear  the  voice  which  once    reached  all  the 


1  Said  Auguste  Comte,  "  The  most  certain  signs  of 
conceptions  being  scientific  are  continuousness  and  fertil- 
ity." Quoted  in  Reed's  "  Pocket  System  of  Theology," 
p.  128. 


2  20  SERVICE    TO   LIFE 

depths   of   the    formless    void.    ''  Let    there    be 
light  ;  "  and  Hght  will  be. 

The  conclusion  of  this  whole  contention  is 
that  the  essentials  of  Christian  truth  are  always 
apprehensible  ;  imagination  catches  them,  and 
never  lets  them  go. 

2.    Imagination  and  the  Average 
Christian 

As  to  the  moral  and  spiritual  achievements 
of  Christianity,  it  is  never  to  be  lost  sight  of 
that  the  average  is  the  actual.  The  common- 
place Christian  of  any  period  is  the  precise 
exponent  of  what  our  religion  is  accomplishing 
for  that  period.  Isothermal  lines  across  a  map, 
running  up  and  down  by  eccentric  angles  on 
their  way  between  East  and  West,  bear  figures 
which  tell  the  average  temperature  of  the 
places  through  which  the  lines  are  drawn.  The 
figures  state  precisely  how  much  work  the  sun 
does  at  each  and  every  point  along  those  erratic 
lines.  No  matter  how  cold  it  becomes  in 
winter,  or    how    hot   it    grows   in  summer,   the 


CONCLUSIONS  221 

sun's  actual  work  on  a  given  line  is  no  more, 
no  less,  than  his  average  work.  Similarly 
every  human  institution  is  to  be  judged  by  its 
average  results.  The  loftiest  genius  may  arise 
among  the  sternly  repressed  victims  of  absolu- 
tism, while  only  a  respectable  degree  of  talent 
may  be  found  for  generations  in  a  peaceful, 
enlightened,  virtuous  republic  ;  but  all  wise 
men  judge  political  systems  by  their  average 
results.  We  do  not  hesitate  to  compare  Chris- 
tianity in  this  way  with  the  ethnic  faiths,  and 
even  to  claim  for  certain  types  of  Christian 
doctrine  a  higher  average  of  usefulness  than 
other  Christian  systems  can  boast.  Christianity 
itself,  not  comparatively  but  absolutely,  must 
stand  or  fall  by  the  same  practical  test.  The 
saintliest  Christian  is  not  the  representative 
Christian,  as  the  worst  is  not.  The  worst  may 
lower  the  average  a  little,  and  the  best  raise  it 
even  perceptibly  through  the  pervasiveness  of 
his  influence  ;  but  it  will  remain  that  the  aver- 
age Christian  is  the  actual  and  only  real  fruit 
of  our  religion  in  a  generation.      If,  then,  re- 


222  SERVICE    TO   LIFE 

ligious  use  of  the  imagination  can  raise  the 
average  of  attainment,  loyalty  to  our  Lord 
ought  to  inspire  eagerness  to  see  imagination 
put  to  this  delightful  and  exalted  office. 

Meantime  we  must  take  heed  not  to  under- 
estimate the  commonplace,  unimaginative  Chris- 
tian. It  would  be  to  underestimate  what  our 
Lord  is  worth  to  our  day.  When  the  battle  of 
Waterloo  drew  toward  its  close,  and  the  French 
Guards  made  their  last  despairing  charge  down 
the  slope  yet  held  by  them,  across  the  valley, 
and  up  the  rise  behind  the  crest  of  which  lay 
the  household  troops  of  England ;  and  when, 
at  a  word  from  Wellington  or  some  one  else, 
the  British  Guards  sprang  ''up  and  at  'em," 
driving  the  Frenchmen  before  them  in  final 
rout,  does  anyone  believe  that  the  great 
emperor  with  a  handful  of  his  marshals  could 
have  checked  the  onset  of  his  victorious  foes } 
No,  the  battle  was  lost,  and  the  empire  of 
Europe  was  lost.  The  battle  was  lost  and  the 
empire  of  Europe  was  lost,  because  the  common 
men    of    France   had  vainly  spent    their   valor 


CONCLUSIONS  223 

against  the  long  enduring  courage  of  the  com- 
mon men  of  England.  And  when  our  King 
comes  to  his  own  again,  and  his  own  shall 
receive  him,  then  will  he  say  to  commonplace 
Christians,  "  Ye  have  done  this  for  me  ;  enter 
ye  into  my  joy."  If  we  faithfully  look  for  it 
in  imagination  now,  we  shall  share  it  in  reality 
then. 


INDEX 


^^".STHETICS,  54,  90,  163,  213. 

Analytic  imagination,  16. 
Anthropomorphism,  97. 
Atoms,  25. 
Atonement,  143. 
Average  Christian,  220 

Beauty  of  goodness,  163. 

Bible,  practical,  139;  nega- 
tive precepts,  183;  doubted, 
218. 

Buddhism,  107,131,181,182, 
186. 

Bushnell,  Horace,  6,  10. 

Causation,  49. 

Chivalry,  166. 

Christ,  incarnation,  140 ; 
atonement,  142  ;  imagined, 
15O'  153'  159'  162,163,  179' 
187,  189,  197,  205,  210; 
humility,  171  ;    reality,  187. 

Christianity,  essentials  en- 
dure, v,  22,  217;  viev^r  of 
future,  128,  1 90;  ideals, 
156;  energizes,  181;  sus- 
tains, 200;  delights,  211; 
how  estimated,  221. 

Coherent  imaginings,  14. 

Commonplace  Christian,  220. 

Competence  of  imagination, 

3- 
Comte,  Auguste,  219. 
Conclusions,  217. 


Conscience  enjoys  ideals,  2 1 4. 

Creator,  72. 

Criticism  by  imagination,  3, 

9- 
Criticism,  literary,  16. 

Darwin,  Charles,  93,  216. 
Death,  125  ;  eternal,  127. 
Decrees,  divine,  10 1. 
Discovery  by  imagination,  23. 
Drummond,  Henry,  6. 
Duelling,  177. 

Energy,    moral,    160,    181; 

possible,  200. 
Eternal  series,  73. 
Ether,  25,  188. 
Evolution,  57,  8y. 
Expository,  149. 

Faith,  42,  112. 
Fancy,  12. 

Fatherhood  of  God,  124. 
First  truths,  48,  53,  63. 
Fiske,  John,  94. 
Freedom  of  will,  10 1. 
Future  state,  124,  190. 

Greek  art,  163,  164. 

Heaven,  129. 

Hebrew    race    and  religion, 

184. 
Hebrews,  epistle,  151. 


225 


226 


INDEX 


Hegel,  82. 

Historic  faith,  v,  217. 

Historic  imagination,  37. 

Homiletic  imagination,  5. 

Honor,i66  ;  professional,!  74. 

Hope  not  faith,  1 1 2. 

Hopkins,  Samuel,  191. 

Humility,  166. 

Huxley,  Thomas  Henry,  Si. 

Hypothesis  imagined,  28. 

Idealism,  74. 

Ideal,  58,  156. 

Imagination,  service  to  truth, 
I  ;  competency,  3  ;  a  critic, 
3  ;  defined,  9 ;  mental  see- 
ing, 10;  clear  seeing,  ii; 
synthetic,  14;  analytic,  16; 
systematizing,  2  i  ;  discover- 
er, 23;  objects  invisible, 
24;  induction,  27;  relation 
to  reason,  4,  29;  scope,  32  ; 
salient  truths,  33;  art  of 
war,  35 ;  statesmanship, 
36;  history,  37;  science, 
38;  faiih,  42  ;  not  intuition, 
43  ;  first  truths,  48  ;  Ro- 
manes' view,  50 ;  senti- 
ments, 53 ;  ideal  personal, 
61;  Creator,  72;  motion, 
72  ;  order,  78  ;  adaptations, 
83  ;  evolution,  87  ;  organ- 
isms, 91;  man,  93  ;  God's 
personality,  95  ;  God's  per- 
fection, 98  ;  Ruler,  loi  ; 
sovereignty  and  freedom, 
10 1  ;  miracles  and  magic, 
108,  116;  psychic  phe- 
nomena, 119;  spiritism, 
121;  the  Father,  124;  im- 
mortality, 125  ;  of  the  bad, 
125;  of  the  good,  128; 
revelation,    133;     incarna- 


tion, 140;  atonement,  142; 
last  day,  143;  service  to 
life,  147;  expository,  149  ; 
ideals,  1 56 ;  energy  pos- 
sible, 160;  beauty  in  good- 
ness, 103;  honor  in  hu- 
mility, 166;  energy  attained, 
181  ;  Christianity  positive, 
181  ;  Christ  realized,  187; 
modem  eschatology,  190; 
perseverance,  200 ;  emu- 
lation, 201  ;  duty,  206; 
attractive  ends,  211;  con- 
clusions, 217;  truthsof  ex- 
perience, 217;  average 
Christian,  220. 

Immortality,  125. 

Incarnation,  140. 

Infinite  series,  73. 

Intuition  and  faith,  43. 

Knighthood,  166. 

Law,  27,  78. 

Life,  origin,  117;  eternal,  i  28. 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  170. 
Literarv  criticism,  16. 
Louis  XIV.,  20S. 

Magic,  108, 116, 
Man's  origin,  93. 
Materialism,  94. 
Mathematics,  26,  82. 
Matter,  theory  of,  18  ;  unity 

of,  79. 
Matterhorn,  t,!,. 
Method  of  imagination,  5, 14, 

21,  28. 
Military  art,  35. 
Miracles,  108,  116,  122. 
Motion,  72. 

Napoleon,  36,  222. 


INDEX 


227 


Palf.y,  William,  86. 

Pantheism,  98. 

Paul's  energy,  161  ;  humility, 

170. 
Penalty,  194. 
Perseverance,  200. 
Personality  of  God,  95. 
Philosophic  imagination,  18. 
Poet  a  seer,  3,  12,  20. 
Protestant  rule  of  life,  207. 
Psychic  phenomena,  119. 

Quality  and  law,  78. 

Realizing  sense,  9,  11. 
Reason,  4,  29,  55. 
Resurrection,  132. 
Revelation.  133. 
Righteousness  and  life,  128. 
Ritschlianism,  182 
Romances,  16. 
Romanes,  George  John,  50. 
Ruler,  God,  loi. 
Ruskin,  John,  19. 

Salient  truth,  t,^)- 
Scientific  imagination,  4,  38, 

88. 
Scope  of  imagination,  32. 
Sentiments  and  truth,  53,  58. 
Sovereignty  of  God,  loi. 


Spiritism,  121. 

Spontaneous  generation,  117. 
Stair,  Larl  of,  208. 
Statesmanship,  36. 
Summaries,    23,    30,   48,    71, 

II  I,  217. 
Superstition,  85. 
Synthetic  imagination,  15. 
System  a  test,  21. 

Tastes  trained,  213. 

Teleology,  84. 

Telepathy,  120. 

Theology    pcssible,    7  ;  how 

formed,  21. 
Traditional  ideas,  v,  34,  217. 
Tyndall,   John,  4,  6,  39,  74. 

Ullm Ann's  "  Sinlessness  of 

Jesus,"  1S8. 
Unimaginative  minds,  32,  67. 

Victoria,  Queen,  209. 
Virtue,      Protestant     theory, 

207. 
Vividness    of    mental    view, 

II. 

Washington,  George,  168. 
Waterloo,  222. 
Wordsworth,  William,  71. 


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